


Long Days and Nights Ahead

by FallLover



Series: Castlevania Follows After [1]
Category: Castlevania (Cartoon), 悪魔城ドラキュラ | Castlevania Series
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blow Jobs, Body Horror, M/M, Non-Consensual Blow Jobs, Post-Season 2, Public Humiliation, Suicidal Thoughts, Torture, Trauma, the animals are NOT involved in the sex stuff I promise, threatened violence against animals, violence against animals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-09
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-08-21 03:49:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 8
Words: 25,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16569062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FallLover/pseuds/FallLover
Summary: Hard travel for Hector is rough when you've grown unused to it, are woefully unprepared for it, are surrounded by monsters all the way, and just came off one of the worst and longest days you've had in a while.Post season 2 follow-up.





	1. Bloody Footprints

When you trap an animal in a corner, the animal can cower, or its terror can make it attack at its deadliest. When you trap a mind in a corner, the results are similar, but also like a circuit. Helplessness, anger, pain… all circling and feeding on each other. Endlessly. The brain gets bored and needs something to take up the time.

They traveled through what felt like the longest night of Hector’s life before Carmilla called the first halt. Always, the threat of the sun. The guards got to setting up camp for the day.

Hector’s feet hurt. Hurt is the wrong word to use for marching relentlessly for several hours in shoes that were not made for such travel, after already having spent a long day running around a city. His clothes were largely ceremonial, even if they were also meant to protect him a bit during his work and keep him somewhat warm in Dracula’s castle.

At first he felt like his feet were finding every imperfection in the soles. Then his feet were just throbbing masses on the end of his legs. He stumbled more and more as the hours passed. Every time he slowed, Carmilla would snap the leash, making him have trouble breathing and dash forward to make up for it.

When they stopped he collapsed, gasping, in the dirt. He didn’t care that he was even filthier than he was when they’d left Braila. Just _stopping_ was enough. And Carmilla hadn’t yet yanked the leash to make him stand.

There was a time when he’d been used to deprivation. To being hit, beaten. To stones and worse being thrown at him. To being starved, to scrounging for scraps. Learning to make edible meals the hard way – through trial and error – rather than being taught by a helpful family member, friend, or teacher. Even when he had a place of his own and food was no longer an issue, he ate at odd times. He’d never adjusted to food not being a problem. So it wasn’t the hunger that bothered him yet, although the hard trek was definitely bringing it on. And he’d been able to work through the pain a great deal. But still. A year of living in Dracula’s castle, with great luxury, on top of living in his own place for some time, had clearly softened him.

He remembered one of the last conversations he’d had with Isaac. Perhaps the first time they’d been friendly in any capacity with each other. Isaac, who preferred the cold of Dracula’s castle, because he was from the desert. Hector was the opposite. He was used to the cold. Hated it with a vengeance. Hated scrounging for scraps to wear. Tinder for fires. Rebuilding homes angry villagers tore down to keep his weak human flesh warm at night.

His mind bounced around like this. Memories of his time as Dracula’s forgemaster. His childhood, even. Living on his own. All the mistakes he’d made. His feet hurting. Escape. Regret. Escape. His feet. That damn leash. The hammer he’d made himself, now somewhere out there in the world, wherever Dracula’s castle was. The pets he’d left behind. The books. The writings he’d made. His feet.

He’d thought of trying to manipulate one of the horses, perhaps. Or if he could get his hands on one of the guards. But they’d all been too far away. His current decision, when the pain got too much, was waiting until they gave him tools. A forgemaster’s beasts obeyed the forgemaster. Carmilla could chain him. Hit him. But if she had him make monsters, he would be the one holding their loyalty.

He clearly had some value to her for what he could do. She wouldn’t just kill him offhand. He wasn’t planning to teach anyone what he could do. He’d tried, once. That had ended poorly. Carmilla clearly hadn’t decided to turn him into a vampire yet, or perhaps even at all. Perhaps she thought he would lose his abilities if he turned into a vampire, or that he would break free.

Hector looked at his future filled with potential pain until he could make his own jailbreakers and he did not like it at all. He wasn’t as passionate as Isaac. As willing to sacrifice himself. He was certainly not as masochistic. He wondered if simply kowtowing to Carmilla would be fine. She didn’t seem interested in genocide. True, she seemed to lie as much as Dracula, but that was expected. Vampires, humans… they all did what was best for themselves first, others later, if at all.

The leash tugged at him and he looked up with a glare.

“Oh get up, pet.” Carmilla was standing on the ground as she surveyed the camp preparations. She’d picked up another cloak somewhere along the way.

And Hector did try. Honestly. Particularly when Carmilla yanked on the chain again. He dragged his legs around, placed the soles of his feet on the ground… and his legs wouldn’t support him, dropping him back down to the dirt.

Carmilla yanked the leash, dragging him by the neck so that he was gagging.

“You _do_ value your throat, Hector? I’m not sure if you need it to do your work. I said _get up_.”

And Hector tried again, using his elbows to push himself up. He got barely any purchase before he fell to the ground. His feet were just throbbing balls of pain now.

Carmilla walked around him, listening as one of the soldiers pointed out the bloodstained trail Hector had been leaving for some time with every step. A Hector more aware of things would have wondered if they’d pointed this out before and Carmilla had ignored it. Or not cared, given that they were a group of powerful vampires and anyone or thing who followed would meet a quick end. Or if the guards and Carmilla were just so clueless that they hadn’t noticed. Or how a group of vampires could resist the blood.

Hector looked down at his shoes. The soles were coming apart. His feet had been such a haze of pain and he’d been so doggedly trudging on that he’d barely noticed. As he corrected himself through stumbles. As the shoe leather cut into tenderized flesh. The heels were completely gone. He vaguely remembered stumbling particularly spectacularly at one point, and then being yanked so hard by the collar that he just focused on getting air into his lungs and keeping up with the horses and praying his throat wasn’t coming apart.

“Hmm… I guess this won’t work, really. Unless we plan to drag you to Styria. How many limbs _do_ you need to make me monsters?”

Hector would have answered with something, but his throat was in too much pain from his beating, the whole evening’s trek, and now Carmilla’s current ministrations to do more than wheeze.

They tied him to a pole in the center of camp, his wrists clamped behind him. His legs were free, and he was at least seated. A guard had hastily and silently bound his feet in quick bandages before returning to her own tent for the day. From his position, the few human guards in the group could watch him as well as keep a perimeter watch on their small camp.

He was grateful at least for the bit of rest, even if his position was still quite uncomfortable. The ropes were tight, and the collar was tied to a separate post. Apparently someone had been cutting a lot of extra wood during camp set up. He leaned into the sunshine, enjoying the warmth while it lasted. He wasn’t sure if the cold of evening had made the march worse, but it definitely didn’t help.

Without the march to focus on, his mind drifted even more. He considered escaping. Had tried the ropes, to no avail. He couldn’t run very far, anyway, and there were the human guards, who seemed perfectly well rested after an evening’s ride. He could smell their food from where he sat as those off-duty ate their breakfast. He hadn’t been offered anything. Didn’t know if or when he would be. Not that he was up for begging.

So he couldn’t move far even if he did somehow escape. Probably couldn’t escape the guards. If he had his hammer… He really only needed two pieces of metal. The coins were well-worn and familiar, easier to work through. New metal was harder to work with, not as reactive to his energy. But he could work with it. The collar was metal, as was the chain, but trying to clink it together in a way that made energy react was making him dizzy with the constant head bobbing. Besides, what would he use the energy on if he got it to work? There were some insects nearby, but he could hardly expect to get much from them. Insects had never been his forte to work with.

Exhaustion finally claimed him, and he only realized that he’d fallen asleep when he was kicked over by a guard as his hands were unbound. When his bruised face hit the ground he groaned and curled in on himself. The movement twigged his feet as the rest of him woke up, and the rush of fresh pain from all over made him cry out. The day clearly hadn’t had much to work with for his feet, which still hurt.

He felt the collar move and heard Carmilla tut tut. “Well, this won’t do. I guess it would be inconvenient to cut your legs off just now. We’ll have to be creative.”

He ended up on the horse in front of Carmilla, his hands bound again. His arms hurt from the uncomfortable position he’d sat in all night. The position meant that she could tug on the leash as she wished, sniff him – which she discovered to her apparent delight made him shiver – lick some of the dried blood off of him every now and then, and press painfully into his sore back.

“You stink, Hector.”

He didn’t respond. He didn’t know what to say. His throat was sore and dry from a lack of something to drink and the constant tugs on the leash. It was hard to stay awake, even with Carmilla tormenting him.

“This is such an excellent look for you,” Carmilla said. “Silent. Bloody. Broken. Such a good change of pace.”

He soon discovered that although his body was still exhausted and in pain, being a new horse rider was enough to keep him more awake. His family – when he’d had one – couldn’t afford a horse of their own, or at least his father had never spared the coin for it, instead relying on paid messengers with their own horses. He’d never been trained to ride them. When he was on his own, he’d never needed one, either walking where he needed or being picked up by one of his creatures for a short distance. Dracula had other modes of transportation for his people. Thus, the new experience of riding a horse for a long, long evening.

The pain in his legs from the ride added to all the other bruises and cuts and his throbbing feet. He wondered if you could be knocked unconscious by constant pain. Eventually it all fell into a rhythm. The taunts. The throbbing throughout his body. The half-vision through his bruised shut eye. The increasing hunger pangs. The dryness in his throat. Hours passed.

When Hector next recollected he had been dumped, naked, into a stream. The stones of the stream hurt his feet and hit every cut and bruise on him and he cried out. He could half-see sunrise as he pushed himself back up.

“The Mistress says that you can try to transform one of the fish if you want to,” one of the human guards standing watch said. “She says it should be entertaining to watch, assuming you can even catch one. She also says we’re to clean you if you don’t do it yourself. And we’re not nice.”

“Now that’s just unkind,” another guard said from nearby. Hector couldn’t properly see them. Pushing himself up was proving a harder task than he’d thought. “We’re the _nicest_.”

“So nice that we’re on this dung detail,” the first guard said.

“Hmm… want to make it fun, though?”

Hector was mostly focused on trying to wash some of the dirt off the parts of himself he could reach, wincing at his feet. He couldn’t do anything about the guards. They were clearly in better shape than he was. And he didn’t know what they’d do if he didn’t work at his task. Since they worked for Carmilla…

He was shoved forward onto his face again. He pushed himself back up before he drowned in the stream. It was relatively shallow, but you didn’t need a ton of water to drown someone.

Hands grabbed his arms and pulled them back behind him. Someone grabbed the chain of his collar and held it so that Hector's head was just above the water, so he was forced to stay kneeling.

“What if boss lady hears him?”

“That’s what belts are for, dumbass.”

Something was put around his mouth, tight. He cried out, but the sound was heavily muffled.

“Good grief, can’t you get out of your shit faster?”

“Hey, you drew the short straw. Chill.”

Hector felt dread move through him. He couldn’t see what was going on, but he had a guess.

A hand grabbed his hip and caressed his left buttcheek. He cried out when a cock was shoved unceremoniously into his ass. _Hurt_ was too gentle. He would have fallen forward, but the arms held him tightly.

“Fucking _tight_ in there.”

“Jeez get it over with already.”

The guard behind him wiggled, thrusting in all the way. Hector screamed through the gag, barely making any actual noise. He felt like his throat would explode. His ass was on fire. The guard quickly began to thrust, hard, making Hector bounce even with the hands on him.

His mind scrambled for purchase. He’d been in bad situations like this before. Where panic took over and he just _had to get out_. But his hands weren’t free. He didn’t have his coins. Didn’t have his pets. He was surrounded by water, nude, and the guard behind him—

When the first guard finished, he pressed into Hector with a groan. “Fucking needed that.”

“Fuck get out already, my turn.”

The first guard pulled out, grumbling, and Hector couldn’t keep track as hands moved and he was jumbled. He tried to make a break for it, but it seemed like he was surrounded by arms, and the hold on his collar was so tight that he had trouble breathing. Before he knew it, another cock was being shoved in his ass. More thrusting. More pain. More screaming into whatever was covering his mouth.

A distant part of him thought that all the guards with him had to be human, and there couldn't have been _that_ many of them amongst Carmilla's stragglers - even for day detail - to bother him. It had to be over soon. Whatever low number he had thought of, he was wrong. Or they repeated turns. Tears of pain and shame soaked his face and his already destroyed throat hurt even more from his repressed screams. Laughter, grunts, lewd comments, all blurred together. He blacked out at one point, thankfully.

He was slapped awake.

“Finish cleaning yourself off, dog,” one of the guards said. Hector had been lying in the river long enough to feel cold, even in the blazing sunshine. He pushed himself up and, not knowing what else to do, got to work cleaning. He was trembling even harder. His mouth hurt even more, even with the gag gone. He didn’t know how successful he was at cleaning. His ass hurt so much that even kneeling and sometimes placing his weight on his legs hurt. He still had trouble seeing through his blackened eye from Carmilla’s beating. And every time he stumbled over, pressing his feet to the rocks, his feet hurt. At a certain point the fog in his mind just had him sit in the stream, staring blankly ahead. He was eventually kicked over and just lay there as he heard shouting around him from what sounded like the distance. What more could they do? Kill him? At this point, he’d almost be truly thankful for it. If he’d been more cognizant, he might have realized that he was still crying. He blacked out again.

He had long dreams, then. He had a dream where an angry voice ordered him to eat something. Water being thrown in his face. He had a dream where he was lying in bed, but the world was bumpy and rumbling. He had a dream that someone was dipping his feet in lava. More of his dreams were angry voices telling him to eat. Slapping his face. A bumpy world around him.

As time passed, he realized that he spent most of his time lying not in a bumping world, but in the primary cart they used for carrying supplies. He was still restrained, and a guard was in the cart with him, but he was on a small cot of some kind. Everywhere still hurt, but he was less woozy.

One morning he was awake enough to see that he was tied up in Carmilla’s tent. He sat on the floor, staring at the dirt. He reasoned it was daytime because they were in a tent, and not traveling. His hands were unbound, and loose in his lap. He looked up blearily to see Carmilla herself standing in front of him, gazing sharply down at him.

She smiled at him and held out a bowl of some indeterminable substance. “So are you going to eat tonight?”

His stomach turned at seeing the bowl and he looked away. The collar clinked against the pole it was tied to as he moved it. Though he was unbound, he didn’t bother trying to run. Carmilla didn’t have to get far to deal with him anyway. Vampires were faster, more agile.

“Pouty baby,” Carmilla said, walking closer to him. She dropped the bowl into his lap. Some of it splattered on the shirt he was wearing. But he fumbled it in his hands until it was stable. “Eat it, even if you throw up later. Just make sure you throw up outside the tent.”

Hector looked down at the bowl as she walked to the bed. He still couldn’t tell what it was and, given Carmilla’s proclivities, was happier not guessing. Looking down did give him time to look over what he was wearing. His old clothes – the ones Dracula had given him – were gone. He wore what looked like scrounged up bits of the uniforms Carmilla’s guards wore. The unarmored bits. He didn’t recall dressing.

He sighed and raised the spoon to his mouth, trying not to smell. Imagining something calming, like walking in a field with his pets, or being at his home before Dracula showed up. He managed to get a few bites in before he stomach tried to rebel, and set the spoon and bowl back down. For all he knew, the food was well-spiced, but it just tasted like garbage. Like he was filling himself up with soiled garbage.

The thought of “filling” reminded him of the last time he’d been fully cognizant. He felt like he could feel the ghost of hands covering him. He put the bowl on the ground and scrambled to the tent wall, pulling back a bit so he could stick his head out in the sunrise and throw up whatever was in his stomach, including the food. He shuddered as his stomach kept trying to empty itself of what it didn’t have.

He pushed back from the tent wall again and collapsed just inside the tent, shivering and curling in on himself. He had more leeway with the collar – likely because they knew he couldn’t get far in his state – but he still couldn’t get far.

“If I hadn’t seen your work myself already, I’d wonder just what Dracula saw in you, Hector,” Carmilla said.

 _Join the damn club_ , Hector thought.

He flinched as two large and lightweight things fell on him. He opened his eyes and looked up to see Carmilla walking away again. He found a thin blanket and pillow on him. He didn’t understand the kindness, then reasoned it was probably because if he died from sickness and exhaustion, Carmilla wouldn’t get her army. He put the pillow under his head and pulled the blanket around himself. It was at least large enough to cover him. The pillow was reasonably sized, at least, and gave him some comfort on the dirt floor. He hadn’t slept on the ground in some time, but he’d once been used to it. He had no guarantee that Carmilla wouldn’t do something to him while he slept or prepared for sleep, or that she wouldn’t bring in more of her guards to attack or molest him. But there was little else to do other than to close his eyes and wait for the dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be relying primarily on the anime for this, but at least in regard to Carmilla, I'm relying in part on the Sheridan Le Fanu source material. Also, in the anime there's no clear evidence whether her retinue (particularly the remnants) contained human guards, but given that they had to travel to Braila AND Carmilla is a "regional ruler", and sunlight is canonically a problem, I assume that Carmilla would keep some humans around, enthralled, threatened, with the promise of immortality and power, or otherwise, for daylight guard duty.


	2. Continue?

Carmilla’s guards gift Hector a fur to wear against the cold while they travel. It’s not much, but it helps. He rides in the cart most of the time, leaning out of the side to throw up when the bouncing becomes too much. It makes him almost miss the horse.

He’s eventually able to get and keep food down. Well, some of it. He can open his blackened eye more, and there doesn’t seem to be permanent damage from Carmilla’s beating. He can walk more easily, not that he gets much of a chance to outside of the times he’s dumped in streams to clean himself off. He works hastily when that happens, afraid of a repeat session of the first time this happened. The guards leave him alone, though. He’s not sure why.

But then Carmilla explains.

He’s back on her horse, sitting in front of her. He has fewer fresh bruises now, so it’s not as painful, but it’s still only the second time he’s been on a horse, so he can feel new ones showing up on his thighs.

She gropes his sides and tuts. “I can feel your boney ribs, Hector. You’d think we weren’t feeding you.”

Hector doesn’t reply. He keeps down what he can. That’s more and more every day. Unfortunately now he can smell what it is they’re feeding him. Some days it seems to just be normal food. Leftovers from what the human guards eat, which tends to be rations or local wildlife. Sometimes they give him… he tries not to think about it and just doesn’t eat it. He’s at least happy that the vampires don’t seem to be giving him food. Knowing Carmilla, she’d probably just chop off an arm from one of the villagers they capture and hand it over to him to chew on. He still doesn’t know quite what it was she gave him to eat in her tent that one time.

“I hope you appreciate how many of my guards I killed for you. A whole two of them. Unfortunately I don’t have many to spare, things being what they are at the moment. But they got close to damaging you too much, and I need you alive.” She pets his hair, like he’s a dog. He supposes he basically is, now. “But it’s enough for an example.” She leans over his shoulder and says, “But did you like it, Hector? I’d hate to take the pleasure away from you, if you did.”

He doesn’t respond. She’s made it clear that she likes when he’s silent. She laughs anyway and pulls back. At least now he knows why he occasionally gets refuse from the guards instead of food. Perhaps it’s their only safe form of revenge for the time being.

That is until the morning after the second ride with Carmilla.

He’s sitting on the ground at his typical post in the center of camp – for whatever reason he’s not in with Carmilla again or kept in the wagon. He’s stretching his legs, trying to relieve the soreness in his thighs. All he wants to do is cuddle into himself with the fur – it’s certainly cold enough – but the pain in his legs is too much for that.

The guards are closer this time, their fire near enough that he can feel the warmth on that side of his body, and is turned towards it automatically.

A guard walks up to him. Whichever one it is is still wearing their full armor, so Hector can’t recognize which particular one this is yet. The guard is carrying a bucket. Hector automatically pulls his legs towards himself, wincing at the pain. Maybe Carmilla scared them into not hurting him too much, but he wouldn’t put it past them to stomp on his feet or kick his legs or something.

The guard stops in front of him and grins. “Aww, is the baby forgemaster not happy to see me?” The woman sets the bucket down on the ground nearby, but Hector keeps his eyes on the guard as she kneels in front of him. He hears the sound of boots moving behind him, but can’t do much when a gag is stuck on him again. He struggles, but he’s still tied to the post, his arms bound, the collar tied and keeping him in place.

“That was my brother her Ladyship eviscerated for you, you piece of shit,” the guard in front says.  She reaches down and pushes his legs apart. Hector struggles, but it’s primarily just tossing his head and wiggling. The guard behind him holds his legs apart, leaning over Hector’s back a bit.

“So maybe we can’t fuck you until you bleed this time, but it does seem like you’re suffering some saddle soreness. Poor _baby_.” She reaches out and puts a hand on his right inner thigh. Hector cries out through the gag and struggles more. The guard behind him tightens their hold. The female guard’s grin widens and she rotates her hand on his inner thigh, then curls her fingers so she can press the sharper bits of armor into his flesh. It doesn’t cut him. It doesn’t have to.

He screams through the gag. It comes out muffled and more like a quiet squeak. The guard puts her right hand to his left inner thigh and repeats the slow motion, slowly curling her fingertips over his leg, touching every bit of sore flesh through cloth that she can get to. Hector is shaking now, and tears are falling heavily from his eyes.

“Aww, poor little shit is in so much pain right now. I guess we can’t have that.” She pulls away and pulls a rag out of a pouch on her belt, then dunks it in the bucket. She pulls it out sopping wet and leans forward again. She presses the rag to his right leg, and Hector gasps at the sensation. It’s at once comforting and painful. The water in the bucket is freezing, but it helps after a moment for his soreness. She eventually pulls the rag away and rewets it in the bucket, then applies it to his other leg.

“But I’m forgetting something important, aren’t I?”

Hector swallows. He has no idea what she’s going to do. He reasons that she’s not just going to like… rip his dick off or something. But there’s a lot she can still do.

She moves away again to rewet the rag, then leans forward with a toothy grin and presses it to his crotch. He jumps, even with the guard holding him. She presses hard and he gasps. The cold is helpful, but her tight grip is… it’s just confusing. He’s embarrassed – this is potentially just some sort of powerplay, touching him while he has no control to stop her. Even if Carmilla were to do something in return, it will be hours before then. The guard presses her free hand into his left thigh and he cries out. Her fingertips seem to find the sorest parts of his thigh.

“I have friends in Styria. Don’t worry. We’ll have plenty of fun with you when we get there, even if you are the Mistress’ favored pet at the moment.” She pulls her hands away and tosses the rag over her shoulder. Then she grabs the bucket and dumps its remaining contents over his crotch, making him shout through the gag. It’s so _cold_.

“Don’t let it be said that we didn’t take _care_ of you, shitstain.” She stands up and the guard behind Hector lets him go. The gag is removed. As they leave, Hector pulls his legs together and huddles on himself.

No one tells him where they are, or how much longer it will be until they get wherever in presumably Styria it is they’re heading, and the vampires talk in languages he doesn’t know most of the time, so he can't eavesdrop for information. If it mattered, he’d consider what kind of monsters he wants to make when he gets the opportunity. He’s watched birds pass overhead when he’s tied up during the day and considered the dead bits of animal he sometimes gets fed. But each monster he ultimately creates is so dependent on what he starts with, so imagining what he’ll make ahead of time, with no materials on hand, is a bit fruitless.

He settles for how he’d rip apart the guards he’s beginning to recognize.

He’s not happy about the gruesome streak he’s developing. The way he gets around his conscience is to realize that, like his parents, these are particularly repellant examples of humanity. The vampires are monsters by nature. These humans simply choose to be monstrous on their own. He wouldn’t burn them to death, like his parents. He’d have beasts rip them to pieces. It's okay for monsters to suffer.

Unfortunately that train of thought isn’t enough to occupy his mind for the long, long trip to Styria. Thankfully his body is still wavering between healing itself and being too sick to stay fully awake all the time, so he doesn’t have to worry overmuch. When he’s lucid, he thinks about what objects he can grab to use for his work. The rocks in the rivers he’s dumped in. The bowls he’s given to eat out of. But again, there’s nothing for him to work with. The fish in the streams stay away, and even if he could get one, he can’t do much with it other than make it slightly larger and angrier. Nibbling the guards to death with one tiny monster fish is not how he imagines his escape will work. He’s never given silverware. When he’s given bits of animal to eat, they’re always only small portions, cut up and cooked heavily. Too far gone to be useful.

He’s never present when Carmilla feeds, and doesn’t know when the guards feed. He assumes they just attack villages and bring spoils back for Carmilla. It’s always young women. He doesn’t see them enter her tent but he sees the guards carry them out. The guards seem to do it where he can see just to make him uncomfortable, sometimes wobbling with their loads like they’re going to fall on Hector. He imagines this is their weakest tactic to screw with him yet. His whole job is about dealing with the dead, and frequently the horrifically mangled. He’s not likely to react poorly to a corpse. He turns away and tries to sleep.

He’s not awake when they finally get to Styria. He’s kicked awake when they stop. He was sleeping in the cart, blissfully escaping a headache. He rolls back to his fur and looks up as the guard with him says, “Welcome to your new home, dog.”


	3. What You Have

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New tag for this chapter: threatened violence against animals.

Carmilla holds the chain to Hector's collar and leads Hector through what feels like an endless network of corridors. They entered Styria at night, so he has little idea of the place other than stonework, torches, and guards. _Lots_ of guards.

            Hector is ultimately left chained to a wall by his collar in what seems to be a smithy of sorts. The forge is dead, and there is a large table in the middle of the main room. It is similar to his old workroom in Dracula’s castle, except a bit starker and darker. Lacking the windows and art. At least he has a chair to sit on while he waits for whatever it is Carmilla has planned.

            Escape is still on his mind. Sure, he is now in a fortress full of monsters, not all of them necessarily vampires, but a sizeable portion of them, certainly. But give him a little time and he’ll have plenty of monsters of his own to cut through them.

            Carmilla re-enters the room in front of a guard carrying a small cloth bundle. The guard sets the bundle on the table and Carmilla walks over to Hector.

            “Up, pet.”

            Hector stands, the chain clinking a bit against the wall. There is plenty of slack, but it isn’t like he could do much against two vampires, even if he was in good health, which he still very much is not.

            Carmilla smiles and opens her left hand, holding it out to him. Hector looks down and sees the coins from his forgemaster’s hammer.

            “How…?”

            “Oh don’t be silly. I ripped them out before we left. Unlike some people, _I_ plan ahead.”

            He reaches out hesitantly and takes the coins. He can do any number of things with them, but Carmilla would likely hurt or kill him before he finished. So he’ll play the beaten dog for now. He can always escape in the future.

            The guard pulls the cloth back to reveal what is in the bundle as Hector weighs the familiar coins in his hands. With _them_ instead of something new, escape would be easier. He looks to see what is in the bundle.

            It is a small, dead dog. A bit too mangled for him to guess the breed, but probably something local. He walks over to it.

            “I can’t really make a good addition to your army with this.”

            Carmilla laughs. “Oh please, I’m not stupid. Think of it as… a housewarming gift, hmm? Go ahead. I know you want to.” She makes a shooing gesture and Hector moves closer to the dog. The guard steps back slightly. Perhaps nervous that Hector would try something on the guard rather than the dog.

            Hector has no idea what this is about. Maybe Carmilla thinks he can’t perform his magic anymore, since it's been so long? Or she's going to interrupt him in the middle or something, hoping it will backfire on him? He settles on ignoring the guard and Carmilla as best he can and gets to work. The corpse is in decent shape. He doesn’t need much to go on for small animals. It isn’t that old age-wise either, poor thing. He clicks his coins together, like he used to. The blue magic is not as strong as it was with his hammer as a focus, but still far more powerful than it was back when he’d first used the coins to bring something back from the dead.

            When the dog grumbles and sits up, its red eyes blinking at Hector thoughtfully, Hector smiles. It feels… good, to be able to do this again. Everything that had happened to him, everything that he’d been through, and he could still return life to where there had been none. The dog wanders across the table to Hector and sniffs him curiously. Hector pets it lightly on the head, being careful of its missing ear. The dog puts its tongue out and pants happily at him.

            Then the guard snatches the dog away and Carmilla yanks on the chain around Hector’s neck. Hector staggers backward and falls to the ground, the coins falling out of his hands and onto the floor. He gasps in pain. The frightened yips of the dog fill the room.

            “Good pet,” Carmilla says, patting him on the head as he gasps and fights to bring air through his lungs and re-injured throat. Then her fingers lace through his hair and yank, raising his head. He can now see the guard holding the struggling dog ahead, low enough so Hector can watch the whole thing.

            “Now Hector, we’re entering a new chapter of our relationship. I can only imagine that someone as stupid as you would still consider that escape is an option. Turning your beasts on me, on my guards. You think, ah yes, I can control these beasts and use them to get away. And maybe you can. Someday. I think you’ve seen that there are a number of ways I can… play with you, to make you come to heel. And there are so many more ways to do that than you know. But I know you like pets. Such a sweet dog with his pet dogs. Now what can I do with _dogs_ , Hector?”

            The guard hands the struggling animal to Carmilla, bringing it closer to Hector. Hector is still struggling to breathe. He can’t quite get anything through his head on how to help the creature.

            Carmilla drops the animal to the ground. And, faster than any mortal creature, stomps down on it with her foot.

            There is a yipping and the dog scurries away, scuttling under Hector’s stomach to hide there. He looks down at it and sees that it isn't newly injured at all.

            He looks up at Carmilla, not understanding. She smiles at him. “Oh my, Hector, it seems that mutt is better at dodging my attacks than you are. Perhaps you could learn something from it.”

As he looks into her eyes, he knows she’d 'missed' on purpose. She could and would kill anything he made, without a thought. She could destroy anything he cared about. Anything he valued. The point wasn’t to kill or even cause physical injury – it was to let the prey know that either was an option at any time, and escape was always narrow, and temporary. She lets go of his hair and he falls back down, making sure not to crush the scared creature beneath him as he goes.

            Carmilla walks away as Hector continues to shake, hugging his new pet to him, for both their comfort. “My guards will start bringing you materials soon. I trust you’ll get to work with good haste. You’ll be shown to your bedchamber when you’re finished.”

            A flare of anger fills him. He doesn’t know where it comes from, filled with fear, exhaustion, and numbness to reality as he has been. “I’m surprised you’re not having me sleep on the floor in here,” Hector says, almost a whisper, working around the new bruise on his throat. Not to mention that he is still unused to talking much. He’d said more in this new room than he’d said to anyone in days.

            Carmilla turns back to him and smiles. “So, not quite so beaten yet, pet? But Hector, whatever made you think I’d make you sleep on the floor? We’re not _barbarians_.”

* * *

 

            The guards bring him a steady stream of corpses for several hours. Hector works on them with a sort of numb focus. Do this, then that. Then some more of this. And so on. It’s slower going than with his hammer, but he makes up for it with diligence. Carmilla gives him no specific requests, much like Dracula. Likely it’s because she wants to see what he can do. The corpses are in decent shape by and large. They may be the food supply for Carmilla’s guards for all Hector knows, or a group of humans Carmilla just hunted up for him to use. He works on them as if they were mounds of clay.

            His new dog sleeps in a corner of the room. Hector took some time comforting the frightened creature before it finally settled down. Hector hasn’t named it yet. He’s nervous about naming it. Naming a thing gives one more attachment to it, and Hector has no guarantee that Carmilla won’t reappear and finish the job she started with her little show earlier.

            He focuses on his work instead.

            At the end of the stream of corpses and monsters paraded in and out of the room respectively, Hector is left alone in the room with the reanimated dog. Hector leans against the table, the coins resting on the tabletop in front of him. He doesn’t feel tired, so much as empty. The table is newly covered in matter and fluids from the varying corpses. His hands are filthy. The gloves he was supplied with while traveling were already tearing before he got to Styria, and the tearing is worse now. He's used to the filth, after living most of his life in one gutter or another, but still. He wishes he had a bucket or something to clean off in. The room is missing that, and the guards don't respond to him other than to move corpses to different parts of the room or the table.

            His collar is snapped and he’s pulled backward a ways as he stumbles to his feet. He coughs as the collar is unchained from the wall. He looks up to see a guard holding the end of the chain. Vampire guards - always move silently, or at least too quietly for mere humans to detect. “Mistress Carmilla has ordered you to your bedchamber, dog.”

            Hector follows obediently, gasping and rubbing his throat. He leaves the coins on the table. What can he do with them anyway? Presumably she won’t throw him in with corpses for the night, so they're no good to him. The dog gets up and runs to Hector, hopping into his arms when Hector reaches down slightly for it. Thankfully the guard leaves enough slack that the motion doesn't give Hector new bruises.

            The guards takes him to a smallish, but well-decorated room nearby. There’s a large, nice bed. A desk. A wash basin. Even a bookshelf with some books on it. The guard pushes him inside and locks the door behind him, leaving Hector alone in the room with the dog.

            Hector sighs and lowers the dog to the ground, letting it explore. He discovers that there’s a wardrobe with changes of clothes for him. They don’t fit perfectly, but they’re close enough to at least keep him warm. There are no windows in the room.

            There’s a side room for a bathroom. It’s almost close to Dracula’s standards of technology. Hector takes a hot bath, cleaning the muck off himself. There’s a lot to get through. He peruses the bathing materials, and now he’s making his skin smell like lavender, apparently. He supposes that it’s better than dung, barf, and dried blood. The water is filthy when he gets out and lets it drain away. Hector towels himself off and changes into one of the robes in the wardrobe. Cleaning is his teeth is a chore, but he takes his time with it. It’s been a while since he’s been allowed to spend time on self-grooming, and every second spent, even keeping himself awake to do it, makes him feel better.

He looks at himself in the bathroom mirror. It's a crude, small thing - not like the expensive and bizarrely clear pieces Dracula kept around - but he can see enough with it. His face is still varying shades of bruise and the skin around his eye is still a bit swollen. His neck is like one giant bruise and it still hurts when he touches it. He doesn't need the mirror to see that he's still lost too much weight. That his feet are worn down and covered in healing skin. That his hands shake more than they don't. They didn't shake while he worked, though. He's grateful for that, at least.

            He buries himself in the bed afterward, which is plenty high with blankets. Exhaustion is like a fly buzzing around his head. It’s there, but he tries hard to ignore it.

            Before he drifts off, he wonders if Isaac is dead, too.

* * *

 

            His dreams are the nonsense of normal dreams. But he feels constantly surrounded. Pulled at. He knows he can’t escape it. He feels like the fear will—

            He wakes, shaking and sweating. The dog is sitting on the bedspread by his feet. Hector has no idea what time it is, or how long he slept. The door out is still closed and there’s no one else in the room. He leans back in the pillows. He can’t live like this for however long Carmilla feels she has a use for him. So maybe making a few monsters won’t get him out of this literal hellhole. He can make an army. One by one. Plant them in Carmilla’s army. One command, and he can sow chaos through Carmilla’s entire army. He just has to be patient.

            And not for very long.


	4. Leverage

It starts with one assistant. In retrospect, Hector wonders that Carmilla even bothered with that pretense, but it’s at least in character. Even working in his forging den - as he’s come to call it - with only occasional visits from the vampire, he’s come to know her a bit.

He had a couple assistants early on who were just what they said they were. Timid, human, biddable. He doesn’t trust them beyond fetching things in his workroom or leading the creatures he makes to their stables or wherever it is Carmilla ultimately keeps them. He is long used to not trusting anyone. He learned isolation long before he met Dracula or Carmilla. Carmilla just reminded him that he had been slacking of late because he had learned isolation _for a reason_. And that reason was that no one could be trusted.

One night when he’s cleaned up and reading a book before bed, the newest assistant – a woman whose name he doesn’t know, he's had three people in his workspace in the last week and doesn't care enough to bother – walks into the bedroom. The door is unlocked. What is the point of locking a door in Carmilla’s fortress? The vampires could just rip the door off or something else ridiculous with their monstrous strength. Hector looks at the woman in surprise and reaches for the dagger he keeps under his bed. He can’t hide much when he works, but the dagger is something he allegedly uses in his work. He pretended to lose it, but really just squirreled it away. For what, he doesn’t know. Not like a dagger will be much use against anyone. The best he can hope is that if a human guard shows up for revenge, it might help him somehow.

Instead of attacking, the woman drops her dress to the floor and walks up to him, completely nude.

Hector tells her to take her clothing and leave. The woman doesn’t return to work as his assistant. Carmilla sends a male assistant next. The same scenario plays out. Hector bars his door the night after the third assistant shows up. It won’t stop the vampires, but hopefully it will send the right message.

A train of them show up. Various body shapes, skin tones, hair, eye colors, genders. Like Carmilla is testing his preferences. Two of them so closely resemble Isaac that they could be his twins. The man he turns away at the door. Something about having Isaac’s doppelganger in his workplace makes him nauseous. He also keeps his door barred that night, in case the man tries that avenue instead. The woman he works with, but refuses her entry into his bedroom.

It isn't that he's averse to sex, although he also has no real lustful interest in any of the assistants. Not that he can't ignore. It's that he dislikes being manipulated like this. He doesn't know if Carmilla wants to watch, hear the details afterward, or get someone to get him in a compromised position of his own volition, or if Carmilla wants him to grow attached to someone so she can use them against him. Whatever the case, he can see a ploy for a ploy and has no desire to play into it. And perhaps having a collar of his own to keep him in line makes him less willing to force himself onto someone who likely has no desire to be there, much as they might vocalize their desire for it.

At one point while Carmilla is observing his work in one of her random bouts of curiosity, Hector comments that constantly teaching new people what to do is slowing him down.

Carmilla chuckles and tells him that he should take a load off. “And my, don’t you like all the pretty little assistants I send you?”

He worries more about the few pets he keeps. He found another small dead dog. Two dead cats. Even a rat he sometimes likes to watch scurrying around the rafters, its bright red eyes and bone tail flickering here and there in the darkness. From what he's gathered in his exploration of the parts of Carmilla's fortress he's allowed to wander, her army uses any number of animals for various purposes besides simple pest control. Unfortunately both vampires and humans seem to delight in torturing the weaker creatures, and leave their corpses around like garbage in the fort's lower levels. It's an oddly wasteful and cruel tactic that Hector reasons is just something Carmilla likes in her soldiers. Maybe she wants them as sadistic as she is for some reason? Perhaps the only control Carmilla exerts over it is keeping the waste to lower, dirtier levels. He's witnessed servants getting flogged for leaving a place too messy.

In any case, Carmilla could take, re-kill, or just torture any of his pets at any time. He tries not to become attached, but without the connection, the magic is weaker. And without the attachment, he is even more isolated. Maybe he did weaken even more than he realized while he was working for Dracula, because that bothers him more than it used to.

One assistant – a woman, tan skin, with long, curly dark hair – pulls her dress off after work and bends herself over the worktable, smiling at him as the side of her face presses into the fluids on the table and she bares her backside for him. She’d told him that she liked his hair earlier. He walks up to her, pulls his righthand glove off, and actually runs his fingers down her back, making her shiver. He is not above admitting that he considered it. He briefly marvels at the warmth of living human flesh. How different it is from the corpses he deals with. But as his fingers trace down her fine skin and near her ass, he remembers hands surrounding him. Thrusting. Muffled screams.

He pulls his hand away and orders her out.

A male assistant – Tigris, since Hector is at least learning their names now – actually gets into his room for the first time since the second assistant to try. He follows Hector after work during what was an oddly tiring day where Hector was up before dawn and only able to leave well after dusk. Tigris is tall, well-muscled, red-haired, and pale. There are tattoos all over his skin, and Hector’s eyes trail over them as Tigris stands in front of Hector's bed, completely nude, for Hector’s perusal. There's a small smile on the man's face like he knows he's pretty to look at and appreciates it. Hector walks up and trails his right hand down one of the tattoos leading from Tigris’ neck over his right breast and down to his belly button. It’s more about curiosity. What language the tattoo is in. What it must have felt like to have it done. Whether or not Tigris volunteered for it. Tigris’ skin is warm and Hector can feel his breathing.

Tigris leans into the touch and moves his head so that he can nuzzle Hector’s lower jaw with his nose. Tigris reaches his left hand out and lightly brushes the small amount of skin left bare between the collar and Hector's chin. Hector feels his skin cover over with gooseflesh. This close, Hector can smell that Tigris is wearing some kind of perfume, and it’s not unpleasant.

“Why are you here?” Hector asks. “What does she have over you?”

“I wanted to come.”

Hector pulls away and tells Tigris to get out and never come back. Maybe some of the 'assistants' actually find Hector attractive on some level. He has no idea. More than likely they’re just Carmilla’s slaves, being used for some reason to fuck with him, figuratively and literally. Carmilla sends more men afterwards, all redheads. Hector rejects them all before they even walk to his chambers.

They flirt – or try to, Hector ignores them – during work. They lean too close when he crosses their paths so that their clothes or skin brush his. He asks them what they’re hoping to accomplish. They remark on his beauty. His power.

"Aren't you lonely?"

"The nights can be so _very_ cold."

He tells them that fucking them would be like fucking a screaming chair. The first one he says this to asks if that would turn him on.

Three of them try to squirrel the secrets of his art out of him. They aren’t successful.  The third is the closest. Hector watches the man try a spell. He also watches what’s left of the man burn to ash once the spell predictably backfires. The rest don’t try.

They tell him all the things they could do for him. _To_ him. They come in half-naked, fully naked. One touches herself while he watches, unfeeling, before returning to his work. One tries to give him a handjob while he’s eating and Hector nearly breaks the man’s arm. Hector may be nothing against the strength of a vampire, but humans are different. The future assistants don’t try that again. Except for the small train who say that he can do whatever he wants to them – beat them however much he wants. One even comes in with a whip and offers it to him, begging Hector to whip him. Hector orders them to leave.

He doesn’t touch any of the food they bring him. One of them gave him a drugged cup of tea - well he's sure it wasn't the only one to try, but that was the only one who succeeded in giving it to him. One of Hector's dogs lunged for it and drank it first, quickly passing out. Hector nearly killed the assistant before ordering him out. The dog recovered. After that, Hector began gathering his own materials for his meals. Sending out smaller creatures to hunt and gather herbs. They travel far, but Carmilla didn’t seem to object, if she was aware. What could he even accomplish by sending his animals into the woods anyway, at least in regard to escape? He can map some of the territory, sure, but it's not like he can get there himself, or like he has any allies he can call on. He puts his own beast guards on his stash in a small pantry in one of the kitchens, which the human servants learn to leave alone. If the vampires kill them, so be it. He’ll deal with that bridge when he gets there.

Some assistants try insults at one point. Like Carmilla, thinking they can get a reaction out of him that way. He sends them out of his workroom and works alone for the rest of the day.

One night a guard walks into Hector’s chambers instead. Hector expects to be escorted to Carmilla or something. Instead, the guard – a vampire – takes Hector’s collar and clasps the chain to the wall by the bed. Then the guard holds Hector down to fuck him on the bed. Hector screams and struggles the whole time. Tries to call his creatures. Nothing happens.

Hector is in too much pain to work the next day. His hips ache. He bled too much. His arms are covered in bruises and cuts. A nurse comes to tend to him.

The same nurse checks in on him a day later to see how he’s doing. She’s human. Long dark hair tied back from her tan-skinned face. She has dark brown eyes that watch him thoughtfully. Perhaps a less paranoid person would call her face gentle.

“I’m Rosaly,” she says. He jumps when she first tries to touch him while he’s cognizant and strong enough to move. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean… did I hurt you?”

“Don’t touch me.”

Rosaly’s eyes widen, and then… sadness fills her expression. Pity. Hector looks away.

“I can leave your medicine here for you to apply later if you wish. Or I can call someone else.”

“What’s in the medicine? What’s it for?”

She lists the various herbs she used. He’s happy to learn that he recognizes most of them, assuming she’s telling the truth. “It’s a drink to help your body recover faster. And a cream to apply for your upper body bruises and your buttocks, at least in another day. To help the healing process.”

Hector flushes.

She smiles kindly at him. “I’m sorry about the invasion of your privacy. But I had to survey the damage and see if you needed more care. I think you should make a full recovery, although it would be better if you ate more.”

“Why are you being… friendly? What did Carmilla promise you? Or is the kindness just on her orders?”

Rosaly raises an eyebrow. “I’m… well, I am one of Mistress Carmilla’s subjects. I mostly treat her guards for venereal diseases, sometimes cuts and scrapes. I guess she thought I would know enough about this to deal with it. I’m glad I did. I’m pretty sure it’s just convenient for me to be here. But if you don’t want me around, I have other work to get to.” She picks up her tools and puts them in a bag. She points to the drink and the cream sitting on the nightstand by Hector’s bed. “Tomorrow evening, apply the cream. You should take the drink today, though. I can bring more if you request.” She bobs her head in a farewell and heads to the door.

“…Thank you,” Hector says.

She looks back at him and smiles. “You’re welcome, sir.”

When she’s gone the room somehow feels… uncomfortable. Hector isn’t entirely sure why. The assistants have all tried kindness in various forms. Doing favors for him. Many of them were arguably prettier than Rosaly. But there’s something… He puts it in the back of his mind.

He considers the drink again, and has one of his pets test it. It's doubtful anything a human would hide in food would hurt one of Hector's creations much, so he's not too worried. If Rosaly wanted to kill him, she had plenty of chances while he was unconscious and even after he woke up, so poison is unlikely. The cat laps up a little from the cup, and Hector studies the animal as it wanders around his bed, sniffing his feet. After nothing seems to be happening, Hector decides it's safe to drink, and takes it himself. It's not the most pleasant medicine he's ever had, but it's not the worst, either. He considers getting water to wash the taste out, but he's too tired to do so. He settles back for sleep.

* * *

The guard returns a week later. Hector had previously found two large dead dogs and reanimated them into fearsome beasts he kept in his chambers, using some of the best of his skill to make them as powerful as he can, without making them strong enough to be among those Carmilla’s guards take away. The guard – a vampire – easily kills the beasts as they attack, with help from another guard who comes in just behind the first.

The first guard grabs Hector’s chain and clasps it to the wall again, with little slack, then flips Hector onto his stomach. The second guard rips Hector’s pants apart, revealing his skin. They switch off: one of them holds his wrists and keeps his head down while the other fucks into Hector until he is heavily bruised and barely conscious. They hold onto his thighs with their sharp nails, digging in and making him cry out between screams.

As one of them finishes and Hector is lying on the bed on his stomach, his face turned to face the wall to his right, he wonders if anyone could hear him when he was screaming. The guards didn’t put a gag on him – likely indicating that either no one will hear him, or they have Carmilla’s blessing. He knows no one will come to help him. Maybe Carmilla was somewhere nearby to listen to him. It would fit with how much she enjoyed beating him before.

The guards use towels from the bathroom to clean themselves off when they’re done, and toss the used towels onto Hector’s back before leaving. Hector shuts his eyes as his consciousness fully drifts away.

* * *

Hector wakes afterward to see Rosaly sitting nearby where he can see her, holding some more salve. Hector is still lying on his stomach, but is now under blankets. The chain is unclasped from the wall. Rosaly smiles kindly at him. Despite himself – despite how much he knows that Carmilla likes to fuck with him, and how this is clearly another of her games, he relaxes. He doesn’t protest as she pulls back the blanket and applies the cream where the guards held down his back and clawed at him. She’s extremely gentle.

“Why aren’t you a vampire if you’re so useful to Carmilla?” he asks.

Rosaly raises an eyebrow but focuses on her work. “That’s… an odd question. Becoming a vampire is a sort of honor here. It’s only gifted to a select few. Mostly her best soldiers or her favorites. Honestly, I don’t imagine ‘the human healer who treats soldiers with burning crotches’ is high on her list of favorites. I’ve never even seen Mistress Carmilla, save from a very far distance.”

“Would you become one if you could?”

Rosaly tilts her head to think, but continues to apply the cream. It’s quite soothing. Hector realizes that he can feel the calluses of her fingertips and has no idea what to do with this information. “I don’t think so. I like the sunshine too much.”

Hector makes a huffing sort of laughter and winces. His throat still hurts. “Still, immortality, superstrength, superspeed, even magic, sometimes…”

“Immortality seems pointless without something to live for,” she replies, moving to a different part of his shoulders. He smells floral scents from her clothes, which is hardly surprising, given her work. “Not that I’m suicidal or anything. I enjoy my work, to the extent that it helps people with health issues and provide a roof over my head. But it’s not really something I can imagine doing for all eternity, particularly alone. And the superstrength and speed… What use do they serve unless I was a soldier or something? And the magic… well, I don’t need it to do my work, so what use would it be for me? Would _you_ become a vampire?”

“…No. But I think my reasoning just stopped at ‘ I enjoy the sunshine too much.’”

They smile at each other in a moment that lasts for some time, before they both realize what’s happening and blush. Hector looks away as Rosaly continues working on his bruises.

“You know what my work is, right?” Hector asks. He doesn't know why this woman is so... kind, unless she wants something. To gain his confidence? Most people, when confronted with the reality of necromancy, run screaming or start attacking him. The assistants didn't because they were assigned to work there. Hector knows nothing about Rosaly, though, and he has no idea how much she knows of him. He'd rather get that part over and done with.

“I have heard about it a bit from the guards I work with. They’re rather vocal when they want to distract from the fact that their nethers are hurting and covered in various unusual things. You… make monsters or something for Mistress Carmilla right?”

“Yes… I create creatures of the night from corpses for Carmilla's army.”

“So you have magic?” Hector looks up at her to see her face light up. “That’s amazing!”

He stares at her in surprise. “Uh… most people get… upset… about witchcraft…”

Rosaly laughs. “I work in the castle of a vampire, sir. There are far worse things for me to get upset about. Plus, in my profession, I am just as likely to be labeled a witch as you.”

“But you’re just a healer.”

“My grandmother was stoned to death as a witch, and she was just an herbalist.” Rosaly finishes and puts the cream down. “Perhaps she had magic. Perhaps she didn’t. She was a good herbalist, though.” She picks up the drinking cup and holds it out to him. He pushes himself up slowly and turns so that he’s sitting. He winces at the feeling in his ass, but still straightens out so he can drink something. Rosaly grimaces in sympathy at his pain. Hector takes the cup, brushing her fingers as he does.

Hector flushes slightly at the contact and pulls the cup back. He doesn’t know why. None of the assistants touching him made him do that.

Rosaly smiles. “I could say that Mistress Carmilla protects me from that – stoning, or some similar punishment – but I fear making her seem a saint, when I know some of what she allows under her purview, particularly after seeing what’s been done to you.”

Rosaly watches curiously as Hector gives some of the drink to one of his cats. One safe intake doesn't mean she'd never try something odd, particularly if she thought she was gaining his confidence.

"Is your... cat...? Hurt?"

"...No."

"Oh."

After nothing seems to be happening to the cat, Hector drinks the potion down. He shakes his head at the bitter taste, then looks back at Rosaly. “In my experience, no one is a saint, and even monsters can be capable of good. It’s all about choices.”

Rosaly smiles again, still a bit confused. “That’s a good summation, sir.”

Hector puts the cup down and says, “You don’t… have to call me sir. Hector is fine. I can only imagine that I’ll be needing your services again, so.”

Rosaly’s smile fades. “Well, although it means I wouldn’t see you, I hope you don’t need my services again. It’s horrible, what they do to you, Hector.”

He looks up to see her smiling sadly at him again. He smiles a bit, too. He felt something warm at the way she seemed to imply that she _wanted_ to see him. “Well… perhaps you could visit and see my work sometime. Or… visit some of my pets. Even if I don’t need your assistance.” He’s dodging talking about what happened. Maybe Rosaly is a trap. Maybe she’s a potential ally. Maybe she’s just a bystander. But she’s not actively hurting him or trying to fuck him, so the chance to spend time with someone who seems even half decent and isn’t just one of Carmilla’s slaves is… rather tantalizing.

Her eyes widen. “I think I’d like that.”

Her words make him oddly happy, and Hector promises himself that if he does follow through with this, he’s going to be sure Carmilla can’t use this against him. And if Rosaly is some other trick – perhaps a human version of Carmilla, working her way into his confidences to take him apart – he’s going to be ready for the first sign of betrayal.


	5. This Little Light of Mine

Hector is studying the latest corpse brought in for him to work on. Male. Middle aged. Clearly some meal for some vampire, judging by the various bite marks and blood stains. Hector is always amazed at how wasteful the creatures are. The corpse is missing one hand and its eyes. Hector wonders if vampires eat bones or if whoever ate this man just ripped it off for fun.

Hector is primarily thinking about this because knowing as much about a corpse as he can ahead of time helps him make better creatures of it, but also because he’s trying to resist kicking the newest assistant, who keeps trying to play footsie with him. Hector already moved around the table twice to get away from the man, but the assistant is not taking a hint.

Hector opens his mouth to tell the man to get out when Rosaly pokes her head into the room and looks around. Hector stares back at her in surprise, his mouth half open, and she smiles.

“I finally found it! It’s so strange that as long as I’ve worked in this place, it’s still a maze to get around.” She walks into the room and looks around at the walls, thoughtful. She’s got her healers kit at her side, and she’s wearing her normal clothes. He realizes it’s possibly some kind of uniform for her work. He also notes that she’s not very bothered by the corpse.

“R-madam, I didn’t—”

Rosaly looks behind her, then back at Hector and grins. “Madam? Is that what you’re calling me? I think we can stay on first name basis, Hector.” She looks thoughtfully at the assistant, who looks down and sidles closer to Hector.

“What’s your name?” she asks.

“Lawrence, I think. And stop it already!” Hector steps back from the man, who’s still messing with his feet. It’s so sudden that Lawrence stumbles slightly and nearly hits the wall. “If you can’t do anything other than distract me, then get out. I have work to do.”

Lawrence bobs his head and leaves, not even glancing at Rosaly as he heads out.

Hector flushes, realizing that Rosaly watched the whole scene. “I… sorry. These assistants Carmilla sends me drive me to madness.”

“What was he doing?”

“Trying to have his way with my ankles, I think,” Hector says as he takes a step closer to the table. “I thought he’d take a hint but they never do.”

“So Lawrence isn’t your regular assistant?”

“I don’t have a regular anything. Carmilla sends a stream of the cretins. I’ll likely have a new one tomorrow. And the day after.” His right hand touches his new forgemaster’s hammer, made shortly after he arrived with his coins in it. It’s similar to his old hammer, if slightly smaller, with designs etched in it that Hector recognizes from some of the walls he’s seen in the castle. Perhaps some sigil of Carmilla’s? It doesn’t distract from his magic so it’s not like it matters, but the fact that Carmilla had to mark even his work tools bothers him just a bit.

“You really hate them,” Rosaly says, quietly.

“Well they’re distracting and they make me slower. And they’re constantly in my personal space with their…” He sighs and rubs his eyes. “At least Lawrence didn’t try to take my pants off while I was working.”

Rosaly laughs. “What? No! Did one of them really try that?”

“Of course. Four have tried, actually. The last only a few days ago, in fact. The poor fool wasn’t as lucky as his predecessor. I was so focused on my work that I elbowed him in the face when I realized what he was doing. Thankfully he still has a working eye, but I can’t say much for whatever scar is left.”

Rosaly laughs again. “That’s… that’s horrible, really. Funny. But horrible. Do they… is there a reason they keep doing things like this?”

“Because Carmilla finds it entertaining, I imagine. And as slaves themselves, I imagine they don’t have a choice, either. It’s odd, really, seeing them and realizing that I still have farther down to fall in this place. This,” he gestures to the room, “Could be worse.”

Rosaly is silent and Hector looks up at her. There’s a sad expression on her face.

“I… I’m sorry I laughed. I’m sure it’s… it’s clearly not something you enjoy.”

He flushes a bit. He didn’t mean to upset her. “It’s all right. I… I can understand how… looking at it from… I mean it is silly, really.”

“Are they the ones who… who attacked you?”

Hector blinks at her, confused, then laughs at the absurdity of it all. Rosaly stares back in shock.

“You mean the ones who assaulted me? Well, not like—no, good grief. They never get _that_ far. They’re just… they’re just _human_.”

“So… vampires, then.”

Hector sobers at that. Her expression is hard, with something else he can’t quite read. But for all that he’s been interacting more with people in this past year than he has in his entire life, he still feels like he’s missing something with them. They’re usually not worth the bother, in his experience. It’s an odd feeling to realize that he wants to understand Rosaly more. It’s annoying to realize that the same thing happened with Dracula. And Isaac. And Carmilla. And look what happened.

“Yes. Vampires. Although in my experience there’s not much difference. On the way here—” His throat seizes up. Rosaly is a complete stranger. Much as she’s seen more of him than he’s willingly shown to just about anyone, and much as she’s the only person he’s had a real conversation with besides his jailor in some time, he’s not quite ready to just drop… _that_ out in the open.

“Hector? Are you all right?”

When he can finally speak again he says, “Yes. It… it’s nothing.” He smoothes his hand over the coin on his hammer facing the ceiling, seeking comfort from it. When he first took the coins as a child, he’d run his hands all over them, learning their surfaces by heart, even more so when he found he could work magic with them. “I’m sorry, I’m probably boring you. Wasted trip I imagine.”

She smiles. “Leave that to me to decide. And I was happy to take the break. Today’s been a bit easier, so I had time to get away. I’m sorry I didn’t let you know ahead of time and just… intruded.”

“Don’t be. You gave me an excuse to get rid of Carmilla’s latest game.”

Rosaly shakes her head. “Then perhaps I should come more often, if this happens every day.”

He looks down again to hide his smile. Maybe he’d like that.

 _“Now what can I do with_ dogs _, Hector?”_

His smile vanishes. He remembers the bodies carried out of the traveling camp when Carmilla and her guards finished them. He can see Rosaly being one of them. He has no idea why Carmilla would kill her. Any number of reasons that Hector probably can’t possibly even fathom before Carmilla says them would likely suffice. He can imagine seeing Rosaly’s corpse dragged in here one day for him to work on. Carmilla watching over his shoulder, smiling the whole time, asking why he’s hesitating.

“Are you going to use magic on it?” Rosaly asks, breaking him out of his thoughts.

“I… yes. I was just finishing looking it over.”

“Do you mind if I watch? Or should I leave? I can give you privacy. But I would love to see magic… I saw some when I was younger, but well… it was a long time ago and probably wasn’t even real.”

“Are you sure you’d want to stay? I’m told the creatures can be quite… terrifying. I mean… that is part of the point of them.”

“Well you’re here to protect me aren’t you? I imagine I’ll be fine.” She steps back from the table, near the door, but not out of it, and smiles at him. “Although again, I can leave if you want.”

“No, it’s… it’s fine. If it… if it lunges for you, just get behind me, all right?”

Rosaly raises an eyebrow at that, but simply nods.

Hector focuses back on his work. It’s a simple matter to make the creature. He’s made so many from human corpses, now. The blue light fills the room and he ignores Rosaly to focus on the work, and the sound of his hammering is loud before all he can see the is the magic and what he wants it to do. The light finally fades and Hector pulls back as the new creature – vaguely resembling a humanoid bat – opens its eyes to look at Hector. Hector orders it to stand and it slowly does, shaking its head like it’s in a daze. It stands in place as Hector surveys it, looking for issues. If the flesh mended poorly. If it will break when it walks. If too many pieces will fall off while it runs. But it’s fine, for a creature born of a human corpse. He tells it to leave and go with the guard waiting outside. It doesn’t attack him or Rosaly and heads out without more than a few snuffles.

“Incredible,” Rosaly says behind him.

Hector almost jumps. The night creature he was prepared for. A visitor he forgot about… He turns to her to see her eyes wide, staring at the doorway.

“And you do that… all the time?”

“Mostly, yes. Sometimes it’s just animals. Carmilla has a preference for wolves and even lions, apparently.”

“So you… made the animals in your rooms?”

“Yes.”

“And you don’t have to use your ability to keep them going? They just… exist?”

“Yes…?”

“I thought perhaps they were some sort of summoned demon or something, running around in mortal flesh, but this is… extraordinary. Unless that’s what they are?”

“It’s… well, it’s complicated. I’ve never been able to properly explain it to anyone. My last and only apprentice… It didn’t end well.”

“Oh. Well I have no desire to be an apprentice so I think we’ll be all right.” She smiles kindly at him and he smiles back, then puts his hammer back on the table.

“You probably shouldn’t be here, you know. Carmilla… she likes playing these games and you’re probably wound up in them already, but maybe if you go—”

“You want me to leave?”

“No, I—” He looks at her in surprise, to see her head tilted to the side and a light smile on her face. His flush returns and he turns back to his hammer. “No. I mean… I don’t want you to be hurt because of me.”

“Are you saying you like me?”

Hector huffs out a laugh to cover his lack of a proper response to that question. “We barely know each other. Do _you_ even like _me_?” He looks at her, a glint in his eyes. He sees the smile on her face. “What do you know about me? Why come to visit, other than for the novelty?” He’s had a string of people in the past year do that, Godbrand and Carmilla included.

“Maybe it is just that: novelty.” She steps closer, but doesn’t invade his space. “I don’t talk with many humans here. The guards mostly avoid me. It’s not fun interacting with someone who has to interact with your crotch without your desire, I suspect.”

Hector covers his face with a hand, but can’t stop the smile. “Your glibness about genitalia is… well, it’s certainly something.”

“Well it’s my business. I’d have to be glib about it to get through the day.”

“What do you do when you don’t have clients?”

“Considering the amount of sex that happens in this place, you’d be surprised how rare that is. But in all honesty, I help the healers in the infirmary. Gather materials for work. Go home and clean. Sometimes I even eat and sleep. Or read.”

“Sounds… nice.” Hector says.

“It’s not bad, I suppose.”

“You want more?”

“Well I do sometimes moralize about how the soldiers I help go out to murder humans and spread terror, so there’s that. But it’s just life, I suppose. If humans were still in charge here, it would probably be much the same. It wasn’t vampires that murdered my grandmother, after all. You get through the day.”

“Have you worked here all your life?”

“Since Carmilla took over. Been a long time. I was a little thing back then. Now… well. It seems like so long ago, but I suppose it’s barely been any time at all.”

Hector looks to the door, wondering if he was done for the day. They hadn’t brought a new corpse in and the new creature had to be on its way to the stable by now. He looks back at Rosaly, who is looking around the room again.

“Did the vampires… I don’t mean to be rude, and maybe it’s private, but I just… did they ever…?”

Rosaly looks at him with a raised brow again.

Hector swallows. “Did they ever… take advantage…?”

Rosaly blinks at him and smiles sadly. “No. That’s on account of Carmilla, I think. She has strict rules against abusing female servants. I feel for the poor men, because it’s open sport on them. But she always seems to know when one of us womenfolk have been attacked. She doesn’t let us lord ourselves about, of course but the soldiers and Carmilla’s other people… they leave us alone in that sense.”

“Good. That’s… that’s good.”

“Hector… I know this is painful, but if you ever want to talk about… about what’s happened to you, I’ll listen. As your physician. Or… maybe as a friend?”

Hector looks up at her in surprise. She’s smiling kindly again. He smiles back. “Thank you. Not… not now, though.” He looks around, not quite sure what to do with himself. He could go back to his rooms, but it feels odd to ask her to go with him, like he was asking for an assignation or something. “I don’t mean to pry, but don’t you have like… other people to get to? Other… friends… maybe?” He’s only had a few of those in his life. It’s hard to say the word casually.

“Are you trying to get rid of me now?”

Hector looks back at her in surprise but her expression is playful. Hector flushes again and looks away. “No. I just… I mean, I’m a prisoner here and there’s not much to do besides my work. Reading. Sleep.”

“Want to come with me to get something to eat? Or are you not allowed in the kitchens?”

“I’m allowed down there.”

“Well I haven’t had dinner yet. Why don’t you come with me?”

The incident with the drugged tea comes to Hector’s mind again, but so long as he cooks whatever it is, it should be fine, right? Or maybe he wouldn’t eat anything.

“All right. Thank you.” He leaves his hammer on the table and follows her out the door. The guards don’t stop them. Hector assumes that Carmilla’s eyes are everywhere anyway. If Rosaly is in danger, it’s likely already too late. And if Carmilla wants to screw with him, she wouldn’t need to go far.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of a slow chapter this one, I'm afraid. Just idle chit-chat over zombie-demon-hybrids and trauma, you know? Don't worry, next chapter is a bit more exciting.


	6. It's Not Easy

Rosaly leaned back in her chair with a sigh and said, “That was oddly good for once. You’re a decent cook.”

It’s the fourth time that Hector and Rosaly ultimately sit at the table in Hector’s rooms for a meal. The table is small, but there’s a pitcher for water, plates, and silverware, and a small gremlin-like creature Hector made who takes out the garbage, usually by eating it.

They tried the kitchen the first time, but the human servants were frightened of the animals that followed Hector around. He’d have sent the animals away, but he was deeply suspicious of the servants. Were they more of Carmilla’s spies? The level of paranoia reminded him of how he was before Dracula asked for his help. It was exhausting. But what were the alternatives?

His food stash was safe, so he had something to cook, but he wouldn’t touch any of the food Rosaly grabbed. He explained multiple times that it wasn’t because she touched them. It was just… a thing.

He’d excused himself to go to his room to eat, feeling uncomfortable when the cooks watched him. Rosaly had followed after, asking after the recipes he’d used. Their talk ranged over his work, her work, the pets Hector kept, and various innocent subjects. Hector didn’t quite know what to talk about with Rosaly most of the time, but she seemed happy to handle most of the conversation. When they parted ways it was… pleasant. He looked forward to her future visits after he was done with work for the day.

“I’m glad you think so,” he says now, finishing off his own food. He’d hesitantly offered her some of his food every meal. Being self-taught had its drawbacks, but then he’d never really had the opportunity to eat fine food anyway outside Dracula’s employ, so it hardly mattered to him. That she had accepted the offer and not spat it out was probably the highest compliment he would ask for.

“To be honest, I’m not sure how high praise it is, coming from me. I’ve been known to eat just about anything.”

“I can understand the sentiment.”

“Too busy with your work? That’s my problem.”

“Most of the time. When I was younger, I wouldn’t eat with my family. They didn’t… like my talents, so family meals were uncomfortable. I’d rather just be out in the field or the woods, finding some animal carcass to look over. Unfortunately that mostly meant scrounging. And then when I left home, well… surprisingly you don’t make that much money as a necromancer.” He said it with a smile, but is surprised when Rosaly reaches out to lightly brush his right hand with hers. He looked up and saw that increasingly familiar sad look on her face again.

“It sounds like a hard childhood.”

“Well… there was a reason I signed up to work for Dracula when he asked.”

“What was working for him like?” They’d talked about it a little before, but Rosaly had seen that Hector was uncomfortable about it, so she hadn’t asked. Now, Hector didn’t mind as much. Even said it with a smile.

So he tells her a bit of it. How Dracula had approached him. The work he’d performed. The war. And bits of how it all came crashing down, as he understood – it’s not like he’d had any opportunity to investigate after Carmilla took him prisoner, or like she discussed whatever she’d learned with him, assuming she’d learned anything. Hector ends his tale on the part where the castle vanished that last time.

Rosaly occasionally interrupted to ask for clarification, but primarily let him talk. As Hector pauses to take a drink, she asks, “So you and… Isaac? You weren’t close?”

“No. To be honest, for all that we worked together for a year, we barely knew each other.”

“I got the impression you didn’t like him much.”

“I hardly knew the man enough to dislike him. I think he disliked me, though.”

“So you think he knew you better?”

“I’m used to people disliking me.” When he saw Rosaly’s wide-eyed stare, he clarified, “I mean… I just kind of expect it?” He frowned, since that didn’t sound right. “Although I expect it wasn’t based on my magic, which is the normal reason – Isaac had his own, that was in many ways similar to mine – but… philosophical differences separated us, I think. He had his own reasons for doing what he did, and I had mine. He just… came off as sort of arrogant to me. I guess, in that sense, we didn’t like each other.”

Rosaly considered that.

“And perhaps I’m not the friendliest of coworkers, so there’s that.”

Rosaly smiled lightly.

“What was your childhood like?” Hector asked. “You said your grandmother was an herbalist. Are you from a family of healers?”

“Yes. My mother took after my grandmother, and my father is a local surgeon. When Carmilla took over things actually sort of got better for us, at least with the church thrown out. My parents didn’t have to worry about the church coming after them. And with the vampires running free, their skills were needed to help more than ever. So… I guess it’s even more thanks to Carmilla and her hoard that I had food on my table.”

“You don’t sound that happy about it, though.”

“I’m not—I mean—I don’t like that they just… murder people, for food. I don’t just look at it and say, ‘Well at least it’s not me or my family.’ At least… not all the time. Sometimes you have to look at it that way to get through the day. But… my life was made easier because most of the humans around here are kept almost like livestock, and my family is necessary to keep the food healthy until it’s eaten. It’s not… it’s not a comfortable position to be in.”

“Would you oust the vampires if you could?”

Rosaly looked at him in surprise. “That’s… a bold question.”

“It’s how most humans would respond to a demonic invasion, I suppose.”

“I suppose. I believe there was some church-led effort early on. It failed, of course. I… don’t know what I’d do. I’ve just been surviving for so long that it’s hard to imagine trying to get out. It’s not the worst life I could have. I’m not pretty enough to be of interest to Carmilla and I’m useful enough to be safe from the feeding hunts, which also helps protect my family. If the vampires were gone… probably the church would be here and my family would get chased out of town or killed. I might be married by now, I suppose, if we survived. And I don’t want to be. I don’t want children, either, and that would probably happen.”

“Aren’t you supposed to want children?”

“Do you?”

“Not particularly. I prefer animals.” One of his cats was sleeping nearby on the table and Hector idly scratched the creature’s head until it started purring.

Rosaly laughed. “I knew you’d say that. It’s not that I hate children or anything. I just… can’t imagine bringing them into this world. It’s so awful.”

“Yes it is.”

“You really don’t like humans, do you?”

Hector met her studious gaze. “Well… yes. I haven’t lived a very good life with them, to be honest.”

“So much you were willing to exterminate us at Dracula’s side?”

“I was told it would be a culling. Something like what Carmilla has here, I think. I should have guessed he meant it would be an extermination but I made the mistake of trusting… a vampire.”

“Even assuming your agreement held, you were still willing to kill off your own kind? Even if it was _just_ a culling.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I’ve known from my childhood that humans don’t care for me. I learned to not care for them, by and large. And humans die every day, from sickness, hunger, fighting… The simplest answer is really that Dracula asked. I said yes. I never really… thought of it, beyond that.”

“The words you use… you see people like… like cattle. Or wolves, to be killed when they get to be an issue.”

“If I’ve learned anything, it’s that I tend to see the world through animal metaphors, for better or worse. It just makes sense that way.”

“But people aren’t… we aren’t _cattle_ , Hector.”

“To the vampires we are. Superior predator and all that.” He looked up at her and she was frowning, clearly trying to respond to him. “Look, I’ve shown you my work. I’ve told you some of my past. If you’re trying to appeal to my… to my humanity, I don’t know that you’ll have any luck. I don’t think it’s there. I wouldn’t even know what it looked like. Most of what I do is survival. What I did for Dracula was a favor for… for someone I thought was a friend. Who saw me as a person for the first time in my life. And now… I’m just surviving. Like you.”

“What?”

“You help Carmilla’s soldiers. You’ve said yourself you know what it is they get up to, besides, you know, hunting humans for food. What do you think she wants with the army of the monsters I give her?”

“But it’s not… I don’t just do it because I was… bored, or doing a favor.”

“You’re surviving. I’m not… I’m not blaming you for making the best of a difficult situation. And you’re not declaring war on humanity. I just…” He sighs. “I’m sorry. I can see this is making you uncomfortable. You can leave, if you wish.”

Rosaly sighed and rested her forehead on her hand. “If it’s uncomfortable it’s because we’ve both had a hand in it, perhaps me more than you. I asked the questions. And you’re so ready to turn me away to protect me. For someone who says he has no humanity, you demonstrate a remarkable amount of it. There’s kindness in you Hector, whether you see it or not.”

“I’m not kind. Not by a longshot. Even ignoring the attempted genocide.”

“You were willing to kill a great number of people for no particular reason other than someone asked you to, with no one strapping a chain around your neck. I’m not saying you’re _kind_ , period. But there is kindness _in_ you, just as there is kindness in many people who do bad things for any number of reasons.”

“If you say so.”

Hector picked up the cat and held it in his lap, stroking it and looking down at the table.

“I should probably be going. It’s getting late.” Rosaly stands and Hector looks up at her. She meet his eyes and smiles. “And it’s not because I don’t like you or whatever reason you’re thinking up. I do like you, Hector. You’re fun to talk to, for all that you’ve had a difficult and otherwise bizarre life – to be generous.”

“Thanks. I think?”

She smiled. “Good night, Hector. I’ll try to visit again soon.”

Hector didn’t watch her leave. He shut the door after a while and went to the bathroom. As the bath filled he listened to the water and wondered what Rosaly’s goal was. He wasn’t used to having a friend – at least the human kind. Dracula was the first real friend he had, in any sense of the term, and they’d barely been on speaking terms by the end of things. It was a friendship built on curiosity, filled with lies on both sides, and ultimately ended by Hector’s betrayal. Isaac had been a coworker at best, an enemy to be manipulated at worst. And Hector’s attempts to befriend him had failed.

Rosaly admitted that she thought he was… inhuman? And this seemed to be a bad thing, in her opinion. So why was she bothered to be around him? Perhaps today had been a one-time thing, and there would be no more of this, despite what she’d said.

He was so lost in thought that he didn’t hear the door to the bedroom open. He _did_ notice when he heard a hiss from one of his cats and a yowl. He turned to see three human guards walking towards him. He backed up, not knowing where to hide. He didn’t have any weapons with him. His hammer was in his workroom. His dagger was in his bed. He was nude.

The guards were fast. They grabbed him easily and manhandled him to his knees. The floor in the bathroom was hard and he winced. One of the guards had the chain held just enough that his head was up. The other guard held his arms back.

The third guard stood in front of him and Hector looked up. He knew something bad was going to happen to him, but seeing the face of the female guard who’d tormented him on the road sent chills down his spine.

She smiled down at him. “So you remember me? Good. I know you’ve missed me, but I’ve been busy since we got back. Getting ready for new campaigns and all that. And since I know you’ve been so sad without me here, I decided to finally open my schedule for you.” A fourth guard walked up behind her and started taking apart his pants. “I figured maybe Milady would care more about her pet witch, but that doesn’t seem to be the case, so long as you’re not dead or dumb, I guess. Did you like the visits from my buddies? They said you’re not a half-bad hole to fuck.”

Hector didn’t respond. He didn’t know what to say. He’d thought it was Carmilla. But this…

“Since you’re such a tame mutt, I figured a demonstration would be nice to see. My pal Alex, here, he likes a good mouth, and he says yours isn’t half bad, don’t you Alex?”

Alex stepped forward and took Hector’s jaw in his hands. His hand was huge and callused. Hector noticed that the man’s pants had dropped, showing his crotch, which Hector avoided looking at. “Not bad at all.”

“Now wasn’t that a nice compliment, mutt?” the female guard asked. “I think you should show your thanks and suck good Alex here off.”

Hector flinched and tried to wiggle out of the hands holding him. They were tight and strong.

The woman leaned down to his eye level and said, “And yeah, maybe you’re thinking you’ll bite Alex or something. But see, if you do that, me and my buddies will pay your little healer friend a visit.”

Hector’s eyes widened. The woman noticed and grinned. “You’re too fucking easy. A few meetings with a pretty face and you’re already head over heels.”

“You can’t. Carmilla will—”

“Oh yeah, Milady doesn’t like us fucking with the female staff. But see, whatever Carmilla does? It will be _after_ we’ve paid your friend and her family a visit. Even Carmilla isn’t psychic.”

Hector wanted to say that he’d refuse. That he’d bite Alex’s dick off if they went through with this. What was Rosaly and the family of hers he’d never met? Strangers, really. He knew this would happen, had seen it that first day in Carmilla’s castle. Carmilla had shown him, and he’d still gone ahead and kept meeting Rosaly. Went to eat food with her. Had those conversations. Better to end things now and just not worry about it. Whatever Carmilla could think up would likely be worse than whatever this guard had planned.

But something in his heart clenched when he thought of Rosaly hurt because of him. True, he had no guarantee that these people wouldn’t just go visit her anyway when they were done with him, or that they didn’t have people there _now_. Or that biting Alex or trying to fight back would even stop whatever was going to happen from happening.

Familiar resignation settled on him. Whatever this was, it wouldn’t last forever. He didn’t think they’d kill him. He’d survived everything else. And really, wasn’t that all he did? Survive?

He shut his eyes and thought of Rosaly smiling at him.

The female guard chuckled and backed away. “Thought so. Open your mouth, mutt.”

Hector was shaking as he parted his lips, and Alex’s fingers pulled his lips wider, then pulled his face down a little while Alex’s other hand grabbed Hector’s hair.

Hector kept his eyes firmly shut.

He felt Alex push his cock into his mouth and gagged as it hit his throat.

“Easy dumbass. Don’t want him throwing up on you.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Alex pulled out a little, letting Hector breathe a bit easier. It was hard and he didn’t want to think about it at all. His head was filled with panic, like someone was screaming in his skull. He wanted to get away, to escape, to push his head away. But Alex had a firm hold on him, and the guards behind him had tightened their grip.

“Breathe through your nose, mutt. Don’t want you dying on us, eh?”

Hector was shaking as he tried to follow the instruction. It at least distracted him from what was in his mouth. After a while, where he thought he had it, Alex got a better grip on his hair and started pulling his head back and forth, shoving Hector up and down his cock.

Hector wished he felt distant from himself. All he could think about was the _thing_ in his mouth. The best he could do was focus on his breathing as a distraction. Not the tugging on his hair or the weight on his tongue. When Alex came, Hector nearly gagged, then realized the man had no intention to get out of his mouth. With nothing else to do, Hector swallowed as Alex pressed into him. He felt like his hair was going to be ripped out of his head. He wished he could scrub out his insides.

When Alex finally pulled his dick out of Hector’s mouth and let go of Hector’s hair, Hector sagged forward with a gasp, come and drool falling from his lips. His eyes were tearing and his nose was running. He wanted to dunk his head in a river and swallow as much as he could before spitting it out.

“Not a bad look for you, mutt,” the female guard said. “Maybe you’re made for more than witchcraft. But now Alfred here, I think he’s a bit jealous of Alex, aren’t you Alfred?”

“Sure did look like fun, Greta.”

“Well you know I’d hate to have you miss out, Alfred.”

Greta took the chain on Hector’s neck while Alex and Alfred switched places and Alfred got to work on his pants. Greta yanked his head back as Alfred stepped forward and grabbed for his hair.

Hector’s mind whited out while Alfred fucked his head. All he remembered was that Alfred was a bit faster, probably assuming that Hector was adjusting. He was slapped to wakefulness just before Alfred came, probably so that Hector didn’t vomit on the man. When the third guard – Hector missed his name as his mind faded in and out of consciousness – got a go, Hector was conscious enough to be afraid that the guard would think he was being bitten because Hector was shaking so hard.

They dropped him on the floor when it was all over, and Hector lay there for a time. He heard the door shut and listened to the silence of the room. His knees hurt and there was a ringing in his ears. Any way he moved his jaw hurt. His throat burned. When he finally moved, he looked up, making sure he was alone. His hair fell over his eyes. There was water on the floor. They hadn’t turned the bath off. He slowly pushed himself up and went to the faucet to make sure it was off. He was grateful the bath was nailed to the floor, or else he’d have toppled it all over. He dropped himself in and swallowed as much water as he could, spitting it out a dozen times before he got to scrubbing his body.

When he was as clean as he could make himself and let the tub empty, he stared at the wall for a long time, his mind nowhere and everywhere.

Eventually the cold got him to go towel himself off and get out of the tub. He used most of his teeth-cleaning supplies re-washing out his mouth. He could still feel a ghost sensation of something soft and heavy there. Still taste it. When he wanted to throw up, he stopped. He left the bathroom and walked into his bedroom. He stared, blankly, at the corpses of each of his pets, still, once more. There was a chitter and one of his rats crawled out from under the bedsheets and ran up to his shoulder. He flinched at the contact, but made himself cradle the poor creature for comfort.

He lay in his bed later, not having reanimated the dead animals, the rat nestling in the sheets near his hand. He stared up at the ceiling, contemplating things. His throat, jaw, and knees still hurt, but his mind was too busy to let him sleep. He couldn’t keep on like this. Suicide was always an option, but he still shied away from it. He didn’t _want_ to die. Still. Somehow. But he had to get out.

And now Rosaly was in it with him for good. He considered leaving her behind - not so much because he didn't care, but because perhaps that was better. She and her family had a life here. What good did going on the run with him do her? He couldn’t imagine the guards would be interested in her if he wasn’t around. But Carmilla might use her to threaten him back. He had to be careful. He had to get a message to her. And he moved up his timetable on his escape.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the tense flip-flops between chapters. I randomly decide to write in present/past depending on... well... mood, I guess. Chapter 2 just came out present and I liked the way it looked, and chapter 3 sort of worked that way. By then I figured the change was permanent so I went with it, but I haven't felt comfortable about it. I'm usually happier writing in past tense. Haven't decided yet if I want to retroactively change all chapters to be the same or what. I hope it's not too jarring.


	7. Do Not Go Gentle

Hector was in his workroom as usual when Rosaly came to visit. The newest assistant was a woman who had the amazing idea to play with the end of Hector’s hair resting by the back of his neck until he’d slapped her hand away and ordered her out. So he was alone when Rosaly finally arrived. He had no idea how to get a message to her when she wasn’t around. They’d never talked about it. He didn’t trust any of the guards.

He was working on another corpse, which was a bit staler than what he usually worked with, so he was testing its flesh by moving its limbs around. Rosaly greeted him cheerily, and he replied by looking up at her with a forced smile before looking back down at his work.

She frowned at that and walked over.

Hector pulled out a piece of paper from a pocket and unfolded it on the table where she could see it, glancing meaningfully at her before looking back at his work. Rosaly frowned and moved closer so she could read it. Hector had positioned it so it looked like she was simply taking a closer look at his latest subject.

“I almost thought you wouldn’t come back after our argument yesterday,” Hector said.

Rosaly looked at him in surprise, but Hector didn’t meet her eyes, continuing to look over the corpse.

“I said I’d come back didn’t I? And we’re friends.” She looked back down at the paper.

_We need to talk in private._

She looked up at him again and he took the paper and shredded it, leaving the bits on the corpse’s stomach.

“I’m… glad you came back.” He pulled out his hammer and started working on the corpse. The fire of his magic burned the pieces of paper away.

When they sat in his rooms once more, eating their meal, Hector spoke as quietly as possible while keeping his voice even. “Can you get your family out of the city?”

“…What?”

“Can you get your family out of the city?”

“I… I don’t know? Why would I?”

“You’re being threatened because of me. I’m sorry.”

Rosaly’s eyes widened. “What happened?”

“It… it doesn’t matter. Just… can you get your family – and maybe any close friends – out of the city? You should go, too. So long as I’m here, you’re in danger.”

“Hector, what happened?”

“I have enemies. And then there’s Carmilla. I don’t know if you’re some trick she’s pulling to try and give me more of a leash. I can only imagine that she’ll start threatening you herself at some point to keep me in line. But you need to get yourself and anyone you care about out of here. Quickly. Quietly. If there’s anything I can do, you just have to ask.”

“Hector…” she reached out to touch his hand and he pulled away. She blinked in surprise. “I’m sorry, I—”

“No, it… it’s not you. It’s really not.” He reached out and hesitantly touched her hand. She turned it over so her palm was against his.

“You need to leave this place, Hector,” Rosaly said. “I know it’s not… I have no idea how that will happen. But you need to leave. Either they’re going to kill you or you’ll kill yourself, and I don’t want… I care for you, Hector. I don’t want to see you keep getting hurt.”

“I know.” He didn’t want to tell her his plans. She could still be a spy for Carmilla or Greta. There to wreck his plans at the last minute. Greta had called him soft, and maybe he was too soft for this. Maybe this is what whoever was potentially behind Rosaly wanted. To have him soften and reveal everything he had to her, so they could destroy it all.

Rosaly looked around the room. Hector hadn’t revived the animals Greta and her companions had re-killed. The rat was hidden in the bedsheets again, safe.

“It won’t be easy,” Rosaly said. “But… I have options I can try. There hasn’t been a rebellion in a while, so the guards are a bit slacker than they might have been.”

“How soon do you think it can be done?”

“A few days at most, I think.”

“Do you have somewhere to go? No. Don’t tell me. It’s better I don’t know.”

“You speak like we’ll never see each other again.”

“I don’t know if we will. We probably shouldn’t. The closer you are to me, the more danger you’re in.”

Hector pulled his hand away and Rosaly didn’t stop him.

“You’re my friend, Hector. I don’t care how dangerous it is.”

“…Get your family out. And get yourself to safety. I’m sorry you’re going to have to find a new living and a new home, but it’s likely better than whatever the people here have planned. And if you see guards named Greta, Alex, or Alfred, don’t trust them in the slightest.”

“…All right.”

* * *

 

Two days passed uneasily for Hector as he continued his work. Rosaly didn’t visit him. He didn’t know how to check whether or not she’d gotten out. Whether she’d gotten her family out. He decided he’d give it another day. His plans were falling into place. Carmilla had visited the previous day while he’d worked and said nothing about it. The most she’d said was, “You look tired, Hector. Getting enough sleep?” But that was normal for her visits – commenting icily on his frequent ill state of health. He hoped that meant she knew nothing of what he had planned.

The night of the second day was one of the worst Hector had. He couldn’t sleep. His plan was about to go into motion in full, and he worried that it would go wrong. He kept telling himself that there was little he could do _now_ , and either it would work or he’d be dead, so just go to sleep so he could be well-rested.

His internal clock told him it was very early morning when his door opened and he sat up in bed. Four guards were there. In the dark he couldn’t recognize them. He tried to move, but one of them was faster and snatched the chain of his collar and clamped it to the post above his headboard.

A handheld lamp flickered on and Hector could see Greta’s angry face.

“So you got your girlfriend out then? Smart. But see, there are other ways to deal with you, mutt.”

Hector was flipped over onto his stomach and his pants were ripped off. He couldn’t tell who was holding him down. He couldn’t reach the dagger under his mattress and hoped his rat had fled somewhere safe.

Someone sat behind him and arms held his hands on the bedspread. His ass was pulled up and a cock shoved into him, making him cry out. Whoever it was thrust hard and fast. The position was too ungainly for Hector to try much with his legs, other than sort of wriggling them for purchase. Whoever was behind him just pressed him farther into the bedspread, not saying anything, save for the odd grunt.

“Imagine what we’re going to do once we catch your girlfriend,” Greta’s voice said from nearby. Hector couldn’t quite see her from his position. His face was half buried in the sheets and the lantern light was weak. He felt whoever it was shudder their release and press into him even more. In a corner of his mind that wasn’t going mad with panic, Hector wondered how Greta had so many guard friends who got off so quickly. Maybe it was a club?

The first guard pulled out, making Hector grunt in pain. He would have fallen but for the other hands holding him in place and the tight hold of the collar. Hector felt whoever the first guard was get off the bed. Someone bigger took their place and Hector felt hands wipe his ass briefly before another cock was shoved into him. He didn’t know what the endgame was here. Were they just going to fuck him to death? Leave him unconscious again? He hoped that so long as they were here, that meant there were four less guards to chase after Rosaly and her family. He hoped they weren’t lying to him about her disappearance. He hoped Rosaly wasn’t a lie.

The person fucking into him pulled his hips back and started a slower rhythm than the first guard. Hector felt like his ass was going to rip apart. His eyes were filled with tears.

There was a grunt by the door and a heavy thud.

The guard thrusting into him kept going, but Hector vaguely saw Greta get up and look to the door.

The hands on his arms loosened. Hector took the opportunity to yank one arm free of the grip and reach under his mattress. The person fucking into him grabbed him to keep him still, and the collar yanked on him, but Hector found the hilt of his dagger and pulled it out.

“The fuck are you—” someone said from near the doorway, and there were more aborted cries of alarm from behind Hector. The person with a cock in his ass had stopped thrusting.

Hector got a firm grip on the dagger and stabbed back behind him. The knife met flesh and there was a cry. Hector was used to cutting through thick skin. He kept his tools sharp and ready. Had built up muscle strength for it. When he had time he did stretches and strength-building exercises in his room. He couldn’t take a fully armored, ready and experienced guard. But someone who was more interested in fucking at the present moment? That he could deal with, even with the awkward angle. Now Hector stabbed deeply, withdrew the blade, and stabbed again. Someone grabbed for his arms and Hector withdrew the knife and put it to the chain on his neck. Blue fire appeared as metal met metal, and the chain melted. He stumbled back as the chain broke, smashing into the man behind him.

He stabbed at the arms grabbing him, finding flesh somewhere, and summoned his magic. It was hard to do without the metal on metal contact, but he didn’t need to do anything specific. The fire was in his hands and the person cried out, moving backward.

Hector pushed himself off the cock behind him and spun, grabbing the lax chain above him – mostly for stability – and holding his bloody knife to it. What he saw ahead made him pause.

The guard on the bed was clutching his bleeding face. He’d been leaning over Hector, so Hector had gotten his eyes when he’d stabbed back. There was a guard on the floor to Hector’s left, faintly writhing as blue fire covered him. His face was contorted in silent screams.

At the door, Rosaly and an unknown man wrestled with Greta. Hector sat up – thinking making he could somehow help, but a woman appeared from the doorway and smashed a bucket into Greta’s helmetless head. Greta went down.

Hector stared as Rosaly and the two newcomers panted and looked around. Rosaly had a dagger in her hand. The man had a sword.

Rosaly looked at Hector and went to his closet, pulling out clothes and bringing them to him. “I’m sorry I can’t treat you right now, but we don’t have time,” she said as she got a closer look at him. He was too surprised to shrink from her or be overly embarrassed about his state of undress, and took the clothes. “You’ll have to hurry. Likely someone heard that commotion. Is there anything here you can’t leave?”

“We started a distraction, so there aren’t many guards around here,” the woman with the bucket said. Hector looked at her and realized that the resemblance between her and Rosaly was uncanny – same hair, same skin tone, even something about the structure of their chins. They must be related. “And I think those goons wanted to make sure they had some privacy for their devilry.”

The man stepped forward and helped Hector up. Hector was still shocked by it all and allowed the man to help him into pants.

“There, lad,” the man said. “Easy does it.”

Hector closed the shirt with shaking fingers and looked at them all. His legs felt weak but the man let him lean on his shoulder for support. “Who… what?”

“Hector, meet my parents,” Rosaly said, gesturing to the two newcomers.

“How do you do?” the woman asked with a smile. “I’m Lena. My husband is Jakob.”

“…It’s… a pleasure to meet you both,” Hector replied.

“We need to get going,” Jakob said.

“Wait,” Hector said. He reached under the bedspread and searched. His rat found him and squirreled up his arm. Lena and Jakob stared, but they didn’t say anything. Hector stepped away from Jakob and leaned down to go under the bed, grateful he could lean against the bed for support. He still half-stumbled over and Jakob reached out to better help him. Hector pulled out his forgemaster’s hammer. It hadn’t been easy to get the thing. He’d been making a new one for a while – with occasional trips down to an active forge under guard supervision even before the two recent incidents with the guards, explaining to Carmilla that he had an idea to make a stronger one. She had okayed the suggestion, so long as he acquiesced to a few of her design changes. He’d agreed. The situation meant that he could have the hammer in his room, for, as he said, special requirements in regard to his magic that he would work on in his spare time. The guards didn’t know the difference – that he switched the new, still unfinished hammer, for the current one. He touched the dagger to it and concentrated, shutting his eyes. What he planned was hard from a distance, but if it must be now, then so be it. He reached out to every one of his creatures he could feel and ordered them to attack whoever was nearby, particularly uniformed guards.

He let go of the connection once he was sure the command was in place, pushed himself back into a wobbling but still standing position, then said, “All right, we can go.”

He followed Rosaly and Lena, who led the way. Jakob stayed behind in the room for a minute, perhaps checking that the guards wouldn’t get up and follow, then ran up to the group, keeping watch behind them. Rosaly held Hector’s hand for a while and he found himself gripping her fingers hard, even if it made moving quickly difficult at times. They hid in a dark corner as a group of guards passed. When the coast was clear, they kept going.

“We have a way out,” Rosaly said quietly.

“Why didn’t you leave me behind? You should have gotten out while you could.”

“I don’t leave friends behind,” she replied. “You warned me to get out. Think of it as returning the favor, if nothing else.”

They didn’t talk again for the rest of the journey. In truth, Hector was grateful for the aid. He’d be hopelessly loss in the passages on his own. He’d had some of his pets try to map out the area, but the place was such a mess. Thankfully there were windows for the few birds he found to get out of, but that was the most he could say about the place.

They didn’t run into any guards on the way out, and despite the urgency to leave, didn’t run too fast, either. They didn’t want to make noise and would likely attract attention if they just raced through the area like demons were on their trail.

They came out by one of the smaller stables. Most of the horses were asleep or eating. The stablehands were gone, or at least some had perhaps fled. It was early morning, so the one a night creature currently fed on by the stable entrance must have been human. The creature didn’t even look up at the group as they passed, though Hector kept an eye on it.

They passed the stable without taking any of the horses. Instead, they went to a small horse-drawn cart kept a short distance away. A young woman sat in front, covered in a shawl. She pulled up a riding crop when she saw them approach, then lowered it with a sigh. “God, I thought you were Carmilla’s soldiers. So you done, then?”

“Yes Marie,” Rosaly replied. She indicated that Hector should get in the back of the covered wagon, but Hector stumbled on the steps. Jakob and Rosaly helped him up, and Rosaly and Lena climbed in with him. The cart was filled with crates, but there was a small pile of blankets that Rosaly organized and pushed Hector onto before burying him in the blankets, although she left him plenty of space to breathe. Jakob climbed up next to Marie before she started the horses off. They didn’t move at a blindingly fast pace. Just set off a bit ordinarily, like they were heading to market.

Lena and Rosaly stayed to the darker parts of the cart, covered in blankets themselves and crouching down to hide, although Rosaly kept a hand on Hector’s shoulder. He settled back, not sure how to feel about his escape. It wasn’t over yet. He was still _in_ Styria. Anything could happen. He had no idea why Rosaly’s family was helping him. He was the one who had thrown their lives in disarray and forced them to flee. He was surprised they didn’t just kill him themselves. Maybe they were planning to. He touched his hammer, which he held in his lap. The dagger was still in his hand as well. He wouldn’t put it down until they were free, or whatever happened next actually happened. They heard shouts and screams as they went, although not many. Hector hoped his night creatures was keeping things busy.

The wagon slowed. Hector looked up. He couldn’t see anything out of the blanket over his head, although the sun starting to rise was bringing in more light. But there were too many crates and the covered wagon kept the area dark.

The cart fully stopped as a guard called a halt. Hector’s blood ran cold.

“Somethin amiss Lea?” Marie asked at the gate. Her voice was even and tired, like a cart handler who just got out of bed for the morning’s work. “All kinds of shouting up near the castle today.”

“Who knows, Marie,” a woman – seemingly Lea – said. “There’s always some foolishness going up at the castle. Going on another collection run?”

“The last vampire hit cleared me out of my best antibiotics,” Jakob said. “And I still can’t get the damn herbs to grow properly in Lena’s garden. Bloody weather.”

Lea laughed. “Well good luck to your search today, doctor.”

Marie started the horses again and they were off. Hector realized he’d been holding his breath only when he let it out. They didn’t talk for a while though. Marie and Jakob idly chatted about the weather, the birds around them, what herbs Jakob was looking for. It seemed terribly mundane until Hector realized that it would possibly look odd if the two people driving the cart sat frozen and silent as they traveled along.

Hector’s hips hurt immensely, and his arm was twinging a bit. Thrusting back like that with the dagger had taken its toll. And his neck still hurt. He wanted to take the collar off at the first opportunity, but it was going to be a pain.

Hours passed before they finally stopped the cart and Rosaly pushed their blankets off their heads. Hector looked around, but all he could see out the back of the cart was a dirt road and some trees. Rosaly reached into one of the crates and pulled out a flask. She drank some herself, then handed it to Hector. Hector reached for it but it slipped through his shaking fingers. Rosaly caught it and asked, “May I…?”

Hector thought it over, then said, “All right.”

Rosaly moved closer and held it to his lips so he could drink from it. He shut his eyes as the water coursed down his throat. He realized that Rosaly had drank first to gain his trust. He hoped it wasn’t something else. He was tired of suspecting every move of being a trick. Of being some gambit lying in wait for him. What would Carmilla or Greta gain from any of this? From putting him in a cart out somewhere past the gates of Styria with strangers?

Hector pushed her hand away at last and gasped, breathing heavily. He was shaking even worse.

Rosaly looked him over and handed the flask to Lena. “This is shock, Hector. I’m sorry we didn’t get to you in time.”

“It’s-it’s fine. I didn’t… expect help. You were just the catalyst I needed. I was planning to get out later today, anyway.”

“Those brutes won’t come after you again,” Lena said. She’d pulled the blanket over her down, too, and was drinking from another flask. “Jakob slit their throats afore we left. All humans. Well. In name, anyway. Didn’t want them following after us, but perhaps that’ll comfort you.”

“…Thank you.” He shouldn’t be happy about murder, should he? Wasn’t that a thing humans weren’t supposed to be happy about? He’d asked himself that after his betrayal of Dracula. As the body count mounted in Dracula’s war. As Carmilla whispered her poison into his ear. And he wasn’t happy about murder. He was happy that his trail was colder. That there were four less soldiers to follow him.

“You did something to the creatures you gave Carmilla didn’t you?” Rosaly asked.

“I ordered them to attack any soldiers they saw. I hope Carmilla didn’t keep them around civilians, but… it was the only real plan I had. Creatures made by a foragemaster obey the foragemaster, so… there was always that option. Carmilla just expected that I’d never actually do it, given…” He indicated the collar and coughed again.

“I have some cream we can apply later, and I can make something for your throat if it’s bothering you, but not now. Maybe when we stop for camp.”

“Where are we going?”

“We have some distant family to the west. Carmilla’s control doesn’t stretch that far, and they left before she took over. We sent my cousins there after you warned me. We’ll see how things are there and then figure things out.”

“You’re welcome to stay with us,” Lena said. “We owe you our lives.”

“If not for me, you wouldn’t be in danger,” Hector said.

“Nonsense,” Lena replied. “Living under a vampire’s thumb is just waiting for death, and a gruesome one at that, to come. At some point my husband and I will grow old and feeble and we’ll lose our value as healers. The same can be said of my daughters. I’ve watched neighbors fall to Carmilla’s horde, and I remember when she took over. We just never had as good an opportunity to leave as we could.”

“I should be thanking you,” Hector said. “You saved me. I barely did anything.”

“I imagine Carmilla’s army is thinking otherwise,” Jakob said. “There was smoke and yelling. I could hear alarms as we left. They’ll be busy a while.”

“Once she knows I’m gone, she’ll be after you,” Hector said. “I think. I don’t really understand to what lengths she’ll go. Maybe she’ll call it a loss and just do nothing but… once there’s something she wants, she goes after it with everything. She’s ruthless. And I don’t know what she has at her disposal, besides her very terrifying force of will. And probably plenty of soldiers that my creatures didn’t take out.”

“Could she track your magic you think?” Rosaly asked.

“I have no idea. I’m not sure how. Even Dracula couldn’t do that. I think.”

“Well keep your weapons and wits about you, then,” Lena said. “They may come in handy.”

Marie set the horses off again, and they kept going through the forest.

“How did we get past the guards at the city gate?” Hector asked.

“My father has to make trips into the woods to gather the right herbs for his practice,” Rosaly said. “Mother showed him.”

“I’m always at my herb garden,” Lena said. “That’s why I don’t go. Marie knows enough to make sure Jakob doesn’t screw things up, though, and pick some poisonous plant when he wants something useful.”

“It’s true,” Jakob said. “Marie does keep my head on straight.”

“But we love your crooked head, Father,” Marie said, patting him on the shoulder.

Hector marveled at these people. They had lost their livelihoods, their home, and were setting forward while possibly being tracked by one of the most powerful and deadliest vampires known. But still they found joy in each other. They laughed.

Hector’s rat poked out of the blanket and squeaked.

“Does this tyke have a name, then?” Lena asked. She put a hand out and the creature sniffed it, before burrowing back into the blankets. “And does it carry disease, like most of its brethren?”

“He’s quite a clean rat, really. But I haven’t named him. I didn’t name any of them.”

“Your other pets,” Rosaly said. “I never asked, but… what happened?”

“Greta – that female soldier – she happened. They visited…” Hector stopped on the words. He had no idea what Jakob and Rosaly had seen when they came in his door. Likely at least enough to know something of what happened to him. And he imagined Rosaly could guess something else, but still. He didn’t like talking about it. “They visited a few nights ago. And killed the rest of my animals before they left. The rat was hiding so they didn’t find him.”

“I’m sorry, Hector,” Rosaly said. “I know you cared for them.”

“I think that’s why the guards killed them,” Hector said. “Carmilla threatened it when I first came here. I always knew it could happen. I regret bringing them back only for that end.”

“You wanted something in life to be happy about,” Rosaly said. “That’s not terrible. And pets… they make us happy. Plus, that gremlin of yours was pretty good at getting rid of trash, wasn’t it?”

“Mm. I don’t know what happened to that one. Hopefully it’s off making mischief somewhere, like it usually does.”

Rosaly smiled. “Well as long as your little friend isn’t going to make any of us sick, I think he’s all right, right Mother?”

“Of course. You can rest if you wish, Hector. It’s going to be a long ride.”

Hector leaned back in the blankets. He knew he shouldn’t just blindly trust these people. Knew anything could happen. But if they wanted to do something, they’d had ample opportunities already. If something bad was going to happen, they would be able to do it regardless of whether he was awake or sleeping. It’s not like he could do much know.

He listened to Lena and Rosaly chatting quietly about the stock of what was in the cart. Their quiet voices lulled him to sleep.


	8. Let the Joyous News Be Spread

It turns out that it helps to travel with a doctor, surgeon, and two herbalists when you’ve been injured, particularly when those people saw you as a person instead of an asset, and actively tried to help you recover without spitting on you first.

Hector’s first order of business when at their second stop was to find some animal and reanimate it. Not as a guard, but as a way to distract any trail they might have. He hated using the animals as sacrifices like that, but he was growing used to having the creatures around as pawns. Dracula had only needed human corpses, which Hector wasn’t bothered about. The animals were a different story. He tried to find the animals himself before Rosaly intervened and told him to rest, going out herself to gather what she could find, her dagger in hand. If the kills were fresh rather than old, he didn’t say anything. Sometimes you had to do what you had to do.

Hector sent a small cluster of animals out in every direction every time they stopped. He wanted to make some guards – and he did make a few birds lookouts – but he worried about leaving tracks. About the cart looking strange and attracting attention, though they frequently traveled on empty roads. When they passed other travelers, they barely even got a word in passing. No one even inquired as to what was inside the cart.

He got to know the newer members of the party somewhat. Jakob was calm and quiet, but frequently asked questions about how Hector’s magic worked. Lena was frequently out gathering plants, whether samples she thought were interesting, herbs for cooking or healing, or just because it was relaxing. Marie would keep watch on the camp more often than not. She was a trained hand-to-hand fighter, courtesy of a family friend.

“She was my best friend,” Marie said one evening. “Well… my everything, once upon a time. But she caught Carmilla’s eye one day, and I never saw her again.”

Rosaly pulled Hector aside after and told him quietly, “I saw them taking her body away shortly after she was taken. She wasn’t turned, either. Just… discarded, I think.”

“I’m sorry,” Hector said to Marie. “You clearly cared deeply for her.”

“It’s been a few years so… I mean you never get over it. And she would want me to find someone else. Hopefully someone who can kick as good as she could.” Marie smiled sadly. "Maybe where we're headed... who knows?"

* * *

 

The collar was a pain. Rosaly’s entire family took a look at it and tried to take it apart. It resisted all manner of attempts.

“I can see where the collar latches,” Jakob said. “But it refuses to come undone.”

“It’s likely magicked closed,” Hector said, letting his hair fall back as Jakob sat down again. “Another way to keep me bound to Carmilla, although thankfully the chain was weaker.”

“She couldn’t use it from a distance to do something to you, could she?” Rosaly asked.

“I have no idea,” Hector replied. “I just hope she’s not using it as a tracker.” He pulled out his knife again. He’d cleaned it and sharpened it. He remembered breaking the chain. His magic wasn’t meant to be used to just explode or melt things. And he worried about what would happen to his neck if he tried on the collar rather than a piece of metal _not_ against his skin. Still. It was the only real option. Asking in a town for a blacksmith might raise too many questions.

“I’m going to try something,” Hector said. He put the knife down and pulled his hammer out, tilting his head so he could rest metal on metal.

“What, exactly?” Rosaly asked with a frown.

"Well if it doesn’t work… sorry about the mess,” Hector said.

“What—?” Lena demanded.

But Hector was already focusing, channeling his magic through the hammer. He felt something in the collar react, and there was a tingling at his neck. A flash of blue light and he dropped the hammer on the ground, gasping. His neck hurt. He still felt alive, though. He felt the collar slide on his neck.

“Well that was damn stupid,” Jakob said. He leaned over and looked over Hector’s neck. “Hold still.” He reached out, pushed Hector’s hair back, and peeled the collar off, bending it slightly. He held it up in the air as Hector sat back. “Lucky that didn’t cut your throat, I imagine.”

“I hoped my magic would protect me somehow,” Hector said, rubbing his free throat. The skin felt raw. Not from the magic, but from being trapped under the collar for so long. “Here, give me the collar.” Jakob handed it over and Hector called one of their bird guardians. Hector gave the creature the collar and ordered it to go as far away as possible. If Carmilla had a way to track the collar, she’d follow the bird. If they simply left it where they camped, Carmilla might figure out which direction they were heading.

“Do you think we’re being followed?” Rosaly asked as they watched the bird fly off. “We haven’t seen anything.”

“Carmilla is relentless,” Hector said. He recalled the way she’d hounded him in Dracula’s castle. “It’s quite possible. We left during the early morning, so the vampires would have been at their weakest, and that likely gave us a headstart. Would she know anything about where you might go to if you left the city?”

“Not sure why she would,” Rosaly replied, stirring their dinner over the fire. “Not like we ever sat for tea together or anything. I used to chat with the other servants and some of the guards, but nothing really personal. And these are mostly distant relatives.”

“A lot of our neighbors have been killed off in the hunts,” Lena said, sorting her day’s haul. Jakob sat beside her, cleaning his sword. “Personal post was stopped years ago, so we haven’t been sending or receiving letters in some time. I hope we’ll find something where we’re headed, and that our relatives haven’t moved or died out from some other vampire attack or natural disaster or something. And we told no one where we were going.”

“Carmilla was known to extort other nations by using relatives,” Jakob said. “That’s why she killed off a lot of the nobles. Got what money and influence she could out of them while it lasted, from them and those as would pay for their safety, then killed anyone who wasn’t useful. Those few left she supposedly uses for blackmail, still. She tried the same with a few of the merchants, who have families all around. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn’t. She killed when it didn’t work. Most of us peasants were kept as livestock anyway, but we learned early on to keep our mouths shut, lest she do the same to us for some reason. Lena has some family with money where we’re headed. I was always worried she’d try to use Lena to get to them. But Lena is tight-lipped. Never let it slip.”

Lena smiled. “For once it helps that my relationship with my family chilled since I moved all the way out here to live. Hopefully they’ll help us a bit, at least, while we figure out what to do.”

“What about you, Hector?” Marie asked. “Any family?”

“No,” Hector said. “They’re all dead.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” _I killed them._ He considered saying it. Laying his soul bare. Rosaly knew a bit of it, but not all. Not _that_. He liked these people. They were kind, hardy, smart… everything he would have wanted in family if he’d ever really had one. But his survival instinct kicked in. As he’d told Rosaly, he wasn’t a good person. And he was only focused on survival. He needed to stay with them long enough to find somewhere safe. From there… he would figure things out.

As he watched the fire he thought that it didn’t matter, really. Sure, patricide and matricide was frowned on, but it’s not like he was planning to murder Lena or Jakob. Perhaps they’d understand doing something horrible when you were desperate, as they’d done back in Carmilla’s fortress. But he didn’t want to test it just yet.

* * *

 

They never confronted Carmilla’s trackers. They weren’t even attacked on the road. A few traveling groups eyed them thoughtfully, but left them alone. They were too poor-looking to be worth much, even with the cart. Jakob kept his sword sheathed but out. Marie and Rosaly kept their knives. Hector kept his hammer close by. Lena didn’t have a weapon other than the knives she used in her work, but she’d apparently taken fighting lessons with Marie, so Hector wasn’t worried.

He learned this particular bit of information the evening after Hector removed his collar, while they were stopped. Jakob was off to a stream to clean himself, Marie was napping, and Rosaly was gathering fire for their fire. Lena sat next to Hector, who was stretching his legs in the grass.

"I will likely have no idea what it is you went through, before or during the time you were under Carmilla's control," she said, quietly, looking him in the eyes. Her gaze was hard. "But please, for your sake and Rosaly's, don't overly risk yourself, dear. My Rosaly cares for you, and you seem a good young man."

"I don't know what you mean."

"That thing you did with the collar. It was dangerous. And I know I'm not your mother. I have no right to reprimand you. But... if you upset my Rosaly doing something foolish, rest assured that I will be there to kick your behind into the next kingdom. Marie wasn't the only one who took fighting lessons."

Hector stared at her, not knowing what to say.

Lena smiled. "Joking - or half-joking, anyway - aside, I don't like to see people waste away, or self-harm. Imagine if your last words were "sorry for the mess". Goodness, lad..."

"I'm sorry. It's just... I didn't know what else to do."

"Consider talking us through it first. Who knows? Maybe we'd have found another way. You're smart. My family is smart, if I do say so myself. And we're in this together." She patted him on the shoulder. "Don't forget that."

That shoulder touch stayed with him for a long time.

* * *

 

The journey to the city where Lena’s relatives lived took three weeks. They were careful and made good time. The season was in their favor, and they always traveled by day. Lena’s great-aunt’s manse was beautiful and huge, and Hector felt a bit daunted by it.

Lena’s relatives were enthusiastic to see her. The few cousins who’d escaped beforehand had arrived and moved on, farther from Carmilla’s reach. The relatives remaining had up-to-date news on Carmilla’s takeover in Styria. The new arrivals’ welcome was rather celebratory, since everyone had feared the worst. Lena’s family were celebrities in their rather large clan, and the group was jostled in the crowd of family as people tried to tell them all the news. Babies had been born, marriages made. Older relatives had passed. The newest nieces were curiosities. One of Lena’s nephews had questions for Jakob about his job as a surgeon. A matriarch pulled Lena aside to talk herbs.

Hector felt like an interloper. He had no idea what to do here. These people weren’t his. Lena had explained that he was a fellow escapee who had been forced to work for Carmilla. No more than that. His hammer looked like an ordinary weapon when he didn’t use it, and his rat stayed hidden in the cloak he had taken to wearing. Once made aware of their circumstances, Lena’s relatives had provided them with new clothing. It didn’t all fit properly, but it was better than the smelly garb they’d been wearing for weeks.

They’d been ushered to rooms where they could clean up from the road and given a good meal once they were ready for company. Now they milled about in the common area, chatting. Hector stood to the side, holding a cup of hot tea he had been given, not sure whether to leave or what. More relatives had arrived once the news had spread of Lena’s arrival with her family.

 “Not much of a talker huh?”

Hector turned to see a tall young man around Hector’s age walk up to him. His gray eyes looked over Hector thoughtfully, and he was smiling warmly. His skin was darker than Hector’s, and his hair was long and black, with silver streaks in it. He kept it tied back. His clothing was relatively rich, like all the relatives. He had a glass of wine in his hand. He extended his free hand to Hector. “I’m Paul. I think I’m Marie and Rosaly’s… third cousin? Or so?” His smiled widened. “My mother married in when I was a child, to add to the confusion. But they're all welcoming, so.”

Hector smiled in return and shook the offered hand. Paul’s grip was strong, but not overbearing. “Hector.”

“So what do you do for work? You don’t look like a laborer. Are you a doctor, like Jakob?”

“No. I… work with animals. Healing and that sort of thing.”

“That would be good. There’s plenty in this city who need someone to look after their pets, and the army is always looking for horse doctors.”

“What is your profession, if you have one?” Hector asked.

“I’m a prosthetist,” Paul replied before taking a sip of his wine. “With the vampires out and about, there’s a neverending need for my work. Not to mention every battle our idiot nobles get into.” He leaned down and tapped his right leg. “I keep myself in shape, too, so it’s a win-win.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, what happened to your leg?”

Paul shrugged. “Birth defect. My parents took me to a prosthetist when I was young, and he gave me something that got me around, but wasn’t good enough. It was researching how to improve my condition that I found my passion. I’ve found that chronic aggravation and pain is quite the motivator.”

“That sounds admirable.”

“So tell me, why a vet?” Paul tilted his head as he spoke and Hector thought that Paul was rather attractive. He flushed slightly at the thought and replied, “Honestly I just like animals. I’d study corpses when I was younger and wanted to know how they worked.” Paul raised an eyebrow at that, which made Hector’s flush darker. “I know it’s a bit… odd, but it was educational. My family dog got sick and I did everything I could to make him better. It didn’t work. But I always wanted to try and help animals.”

“That sounds admirable, too. And don’t be embarrassed. A healthy curiosity is good for the mind. I’m used to studying skeletons, myself. Helps in my work.” Paul smiled at him again, and Hector felt his flush deepen.

* * *

 

Hector found a small house in the cheaper part of town for his work and made himself known as a vet. He kept silent on his magical skills. He decided to stay where he was for a time, until Carmilla or someone else presented themselves.

He was not too proud to accept the offer of funds to start himself off with taking the house and getting tools to work on animals with. After all, you couldn’t help an injured horse with a hammer, a dagger, and an undead rat. Jakob came by to help him set up. He had some experience starting a small practice in a new place with little to work with. Even though Hector didn’t need much help, he appreciated it. It was strange to realize that he had made more friends, and he welcomed being around those he had more often.

One day he was heading back from one of the military stables when he passed Paul’s shop. Rosaly had pointed it out to him when they explored one day. Now, Hector stopped in. The bell rang as he opened the door. There was no one around, and he explored it, curious. He did not know much about prosthetic limbs, but the shop was fascinating. Legs, arms, toes, parts he had never thought of being used and necessary for people’s lives.

Paul came out from the back. He was wiping his hands off with a rag. He wore a heavy apron and his brow was a little sweaty. He blinked in surprise and grinned when he saw Hector. “Fancy seeing you here. I hope you’re not in need of my services.”

“No, I was… I was just passing by.”

“Well… care for a cup of tea? I was just about to take a quick break before I head home.”

Hector hesitated. Maybe he was making more friends, but this was still new to him. He steeled himself. He wanted to get to know Paul better. He had seemed nice when he arrived at the city, and the few times Hector had met him since.

“I’d be happy to, thank you.”

* * *

 

Time passed. Hector got to know a number of people in the city, who went to him for help with their animals. It didn’t really change his views on humanity. People were still people after all, and those in power took advantage of those who didn’t, whether that was a noble over the poor, or a less poor person over someone poorer. People stayed away from his house more because the number of pets he kept scared off any burglars. Two people had tried to rob him, but found that a loyal army of oddly strong cats, rats, and wild dogs were quite the deterrent.

Paul was the first new person Hector explained his abilities to. They were at Hector’s place and Paul had kissed him halfway through the visit, putting his tea down and getting up to walk to Hector and lean down to kiss him. It had been weeks of warm looks, conversation, meals together. Hector had expected to disdain touch even more than he used to, although he was comfortable with Rosaly, Jakob, Lena, and Marie from their journey. But his body warmed when Paul was around. Paul listened to him, had interesting things to talk about. Jokes to share. He respected Hector’s space and seemed to know when Hector needed and wanted cheering up on those too-frequent gloomy days.

The kiss had been a bit unexpected, but not overly. Hector had leaned into it, even putting his hand out to Paul’s cheek. He pulled his lips away after a while, smoothing his fingers over Paul’s cheekbones. He was so familiar with this face now. “I need to tell you something.”

Paul had been oddly impressed by Hector’s magical abilities, rather than afraid. “I’m not that religious, quite frankly. The church here is less… strict, shall we say? No witch burnings or any of that. But you get one too many people who think that what I do is messing with God’s design or whatever and you get over the whole business in short order. I help people pick themselves out of the mud and get on with their lives. If God doesn’t approve of it, I don’t care. Besides, what does helping a few dead cats come back to life harm?” He pet one in particular. A tabby whom Hector had met shortly after he moved to his home.

“I can do more than this,” Hector said. “It’s what Carmilla wanted me for. I can make… soldiers. Out of corpses. Human corpses.”

Paul’s eyes widened. “That would make you a lot of money if you did it for the nobles here.”

“I have no desire to do it. I… I’d rather just live, simply.”

“Not power-hungry, smart, likes animals, cute, _and_ sweet? Dear Hector, you are _too_ perfect.” Paul stepped forward and traced Hector’s lips with a finger. “I do hope you let me kiss you again.”

Hector smiled, and did let Paul kiss him again. And rather more than that.

Rosaly visited often enough and smiled when she noticed that Paul had moved some things into Hector’s home so he could work while he visited. When she asked Hector about it he flushed and looked away. He wasn't ashamed of Paul. He was just unused to... everything. To being in a relationship. To having friends, and friends who noticed such things. Rosaly took his hand and squeezed it lightly before letting go.

“I’m happy that you’re happy, Hector. And Paul seems a nice fellow.”

Some nights Hector lay in bed, one of Pauls’ arms wrapped around him while he slept, and wondered when the other shoe would drop. When Carmilla would show up. When someone would say it was all a dream. When someone would figure out what he was and take advantage. That Paul would sell him out. Much as Hector cared for him, save for Rosaly, the last few times someone had taken an interest in him hadn’t gone well. Perhaps he _should_ move on. Perhaps.

But then Paul would sigh in his sleep and pull Hector closer. Hector leaned into the touch, sometimes just counting the freckles on Paul’s side.

Perhaps he was overly paranoid. And perhaps that paranoia would still pay off. But, if Rosaly had taught him anything, and if his mistake with Dracula had taught him anything, trusting people sometimes was the best option. Perhaps if he’d done that with Dracula, things would be different. He leaned into Paul. And perhaps learning the lesson now was worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fin.
> 
> If you're interested in the sequel, there is more! Anyone miss Isaac, Trevor, Sypha, and Adrian? Me too.
> 
> You can also find me on tumblr at fall-loverfiction.tumblr.com.


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